"god" particle found.

[Gargamel]

Well start all the misinformed mainstream media hubbub.

Don't have a link, but the article I was reading said they at the LHC have a 4.33 sigma signal of the higgs boson at one of the predicted levels.

WTG standard model.

Can't wait for foxnews and the religious far right tO cOmPletely misinterpret what is mean by "god particle".

This won't change much, as it is just a confirmation of part of a theory. It's not like they have been theoretically experimenting with this particle for a while.

[Oberon]

It'll be another six or seven months of tests before they can say it for certain I'd wager...in the meantime there will be a big media flare up and then die down.

[Takeda Shingen]

Took me less than 90 seconds to find an article. :shifty:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-usa-higgs-idINBRE8610RK20120703

EDIT: This, as in all evolutionary matters, does not shake my faith at all. I do not find science and God incompatible in the least. To me, it is God that made this all happen. Any and all discovery is simply a testament to His divine plan. This believer has no vitriol to spill.

[Gargamel]

And you tak, are not the crowd I was referring to. :up:

Link I found. http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/03/higgs-boson-just-may-be-proven-by-atlas-cms/



I have trouble pasting links from articles I read on apps on my phone

[the_tyrant]

And you tak, are not the crowd I was referring to. :up:

Link I found. http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/03/higgs-boson-just-may-be-proven-by-atlas-cms/



I have trouble pasting links from articles I read on apps on my phone

Hmm, That's one of the things we have to work on for the mobile app

[NeonSamurai]

This won't change much, as it is just a confirmation of part of a theory.

I think you mean the theory has not been disproven, rather than confirmed. You can't confirm theories...

[mapuc]

While searching the internet for some english info about this "gods particle" I found this

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/man-arrested-at-large-hadron-collider-claims-hes-from-the-future-49305387/

Markus

[Karle94]

I think you mean the theory has not been disproven, rather than confirmed. You can't confirm theories...

Theories no, but hypothesies, yes.

[Penguin]

While searching the internet for some english info about this "gods particle" I found this

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/man-arrested-at-large-hadron-collider-claims-hes-from-the-future-49305387/

Markus

:haha: - good story!

I don't trust anyone who claims to be from the future and doesn't go playing lotto first - especially on a lucky day like the 1st April :03:

[Skybird]

From Tak'S link:


But the evidence still fell short of the scientific threshold for proof of the discovery of the particle, they said, in that the same collision debris hinting at the existence of the Higgs could also come from other subatomic particles.

"This is the best answer that is out there at the moment," said physicist Rob Roser of Fermilab, which is run by the U.S. Department of Energy. "The Tevatron data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson, but it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a firm discovery."


However. It's a theory they chase, and if it gets strengthened, this forms a model of how man thinks that matter works.

But it does not say why matter is there, why there are things existing, instead of nothing. The koan of my life: why? All things existing still remain mystery, even if you can form ideas on how they work, and interact, and what results that interaction has. The very features of existing stuff itself - that still remains to be mystery, and I tend to think that it will always remain so.

On some days I take some comfort from knowing that I will die one day without knowing the answer. On other days, this lacking knowledge is pure terror.

Maybe I'm bipolar... :woot:

[NeonSamurai]

Theories no, but hypothesies, yes.

Even then I would say no. The only possible claim to objectivity, is the ability for something to be demonstrably false. This is the core of science and where true science lies. So while we may think that "facts" are evidence of a hypothesis being correct, in actuality the evidence has failed to show any errors. Evidence does not validate anything, regardless of if you have one piece, or an infinite collection, as the next piece could invalidate everything.

[Skybird]

Paul Watzlawick once illustrated the dilemma in this pictorial little story.

He compared to a captain on a ship, who gets order to sail to a distant harbour somewhere, and through unknown, dangerous shallow seas. Only two scenarios are possible now.

The course he sets, leads into disaster. The ship runs aground and rips open and sinks or gets lost in a storm, and he looses both ship and crew, and finally his life. The only thing he then knows is that this course he picked did not work.

Or he makes it to the target by zig-zagging around in the shallow waters and stays floating and alive, and finally reaches the harbour. The only thing he then knows is that this course he picked did work, but he does not know whether there are other, better, shorter, safer, more economic routes possible.

Consider life and cosmos to be a dangeorus sea of - at least from human perspective - unlimited size.

[mapuc]

I read this in a danish newspaper

(Translatet via Google translate)

"Higgs particle was subsequently nicknamed the 'God particle, "as American Leon Lederman wrote a book in which he would call the particle, which has caused many frustrations over the world for' The goddamned particle '. It considered the American publishers, however, was a little too harsh for the delicate Americans, and the book was instead titled 'The God Particle'"

So now I know why it's called Gods particle.


Markus

[Herr-Berbunch]

Delicate? :hmmm:

[Biggles]

Well CERN has confirmed that they've found a new particle alright, and that it is likely to be the One. Further examination is needed but the final verdict should be finished by the end of the month. Exciting, no doubt!

Also:

http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/4683221_460s.jpg

Naw, but seriously, happy 4th to you lot! :yeah:

[Sammi79]

Well, now it (whatever IT is) has been confirmed to exist, maybe people can finally drop the increasingly inappropriate 'God particle' tag.

Bloomin' media and their sound byte nonsense.

:O:

[Onkel Neal]

Took me less than 90 seconds to find an article. :shifty:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-usa-higgs-idINBRE8610RK20120703

EDIT: This, as in all evolutionary matters, does not shake my faith at all. I do not find science and God incompatible in the least. To me, it is God that made this all happen. Any and all discovery is simply a testament to His divine plan. This believer has no vitriol to spill.

:up: Can't argue with that.

"god" particle found. When was it lost?

[Skybird]

Sciences asks and analyses, tests and re-tests. It'S statements are formulated on the basis of probabilities, not total certainties, it's results are temporary, some live long,. some not.

The question of whether there is a god, is a scientific one. First, because relgions claiming there is a god have done their best to hamper and persecute and supress science, and second, science by its very nature collects data that also allow us to make well-founded probability-assumptions on how likely it is that there is a god.

To me it seems that probability goes towards almost nill.

Plus if there were a god, this would again raise questions: where is he, where did he come, what was before. If you call the existence of something, you immediately also define a state of that something not excisting - not yet existing, or no more existing. The unavoidable duality of our intellectual mind. It makes no sense of thinking "high", when there is no "low". No "left" without a "right". So, assuming there is a god leads us to the same state where we are today with modern cosmological theories: Big Bang, fluctuating universe, and others. They all - unsuccessfully - try to avoid that asking for the "before" and the "why" by pushing the decisive time criterion when things started almost eternally far away on the time scale. But that does not solve the structural question, it only increases the year-scale. Fluctuating Universe does not give answers to the Why? and the Before?, and God does not give answer to the Why? and the Before? Thus, the explanatory of the god speculation is not one inch bigger than that of Big Bang and Fluctuating Universe. However, the phenomenons and processes and events since the beginning, which took place, we can exmaine, we can perceive, we can reconstruct, we can explain. We even can make predictions of high probability. But God: we do not nor ever have seen him, we do not analyse him, do not check and test him, do not explain him, and have no evidence whatever that he even exiosts, his phenomenological existence is totally in doubt.

Science and god are not incompatible, said Tak. Well, that does not mean they are on same eye level. God is an object of science. For seeing it the other way around, the existence of God is needed to get proven first.

Let me know, anybody, when the first positive results gets published, preferrably not in Grimm's Fairy Tales or the Bible, but a proofread science magazine.

P.S. No hard feelings, Tak, you know I cannot act against my nature. :)

[Skybird]

:up: Can't argue with that.

"god" particle found. When was it lost?

This useless debate on "god" in "god particle" remains to be that: useless.
Some guy wrote a book entitled "The god-damn particle", since it was so hard to be observed. The publisher did not liek that title, and deleted the "-damn" in it. What remains was "The god particle."

Since the theory of it seem to give it a decisive importance for structural formation of all matter (I'm not sure I understood the basic concept of the theory), the phrase nevertheless highlights that unique importance in a symbolical or methaphorical way.

[MH]

Science and god are not incompatible, said Tak. Well, that does not mean they are on same eye level. God is an object of science. For seeing it the other way around, the existence of God is needed to get proven first.



I think that some scientists at CERN would disagree with you on this matter.
Universe governs its self from the moment of creation or big bang according to physical laws but there may be philosophical need for god as a spark at the beginning.
It is far cry from believing in zombie or jealous guy in the sky but never less "God and science are incompatible" is false statement.
As the since changes our philosophical take on god may moves along the way....that is if we chose so.
You can believe that or you can believe in Dawkins and his maniac lectures lol.







...........

[Blood_splat]

We're just living in a black hole among other black holes.:O:

[MH]

We're just living in a black hole among other black holes.:O:

We are living in the Matrix :haha:...or yellow submarine.

[Armistead]

Who cares, the world ends Dec. of this year anyway...:salute:

[Skybird]

I think that some scientists at CERN would disagree with you on this matter.
Universe governs its self from the moment of creation or big bang according to physical laws but there may be philosophical need for god as a spark at the beginning.
It is far cry from believing in zombie or jealous guy in the sky but never less "God and science are incompatible" is false statement.
As the since changes our philosophical take on god may moves along the way....that is if we chose so.
You can believe that or you can believe in Dawkins and his maniac lectures lol.

You have not read or not understood what I wrote, instead put things I did not say in my mouth. Combine that with a statemenet on subjectivity of a choice that renders a linked option as not a causal conseqeucnes, but a random subjective choice indeed, and close with an opportunistic bash at some author you do not like and who thus must be psychologically ill - and finished your posting is, ready to get set up.

Read again, and this time try to stick to what I actually wrote, not what you imagine to perceive as being written in invisible ink between the lines.

Many scientists consider metaphysics, but it is a very typical attempt by religious people to claim that these scientist then mea that there is the theistic God from the desert dogmas. Most famous example is Albert Einstein who time and again is referred to as having been in support of a belief in a god, or that he converted to that belief near his death, whereas the - demonstrated - truth is that there is plenty of literaric evidence - writings by his own, letters - that show that he felt almost contempt for that conception, and did not want to have anything to do with it. Scientists, if they are serious, indeed ask the same question that I ask: "Why are we here, what was before,, why is there anythign at all?". Their work necessarily lead to these questions and confronts them with that. But to state that this necessarily leads them to believing in deities, is not only absurd - it is wrong, and even an insult of their minds. Science, and spirituality - asking for the existential questions and reflecting over them -, is no contradiction at all. But spirituality and believing some religious dogma set up by a cult or an ideology - that is a contradiction. The spiritual mind is the searching mind. The religious mind is the mind that seriously believes it knows. The doubt, and not making total claims on absolutes and not postulating eternal truths - that is what sprituality and science have in common. Religions on the other side just do right that: making absolute claims on absolute truths as if their truth were proven fact where in reality it is just hear-say at best, and as if there were no need at all to check and examine these claims.

And the more doubt they are confronted with and the more substantial argument they face that they cannot counter, the more they declare the just blindly believing, the just take-it-for-real-even-without-a-good-reason as a moral virtue that glorifies the blind believer over the sceptic. The more blind you are, the more virtuous you are. Well, that'S a good one!

That is a massive waste of human potential and mental resource. Or in a religious man's words: that is refusing the gift of a brain that God has given him, thinking that without accepting that gift and using it to its purpose, brainless as he then is he would know it better than God.

If I were God, I would turn silent on such a poor fellow and let him suffer the tides of life, too. :haha:

[MH]

Its not about necessity it is about lack of sufficient prove of otherwise.
Scientist don't necessarily have to believe or disabled but in methodological manner can not claim either since there is no absolute prove of either....that is if they bother to consider it...and some do.
I don't think that general belief is anyhow waste of resources.
I can not see how it does interfere with the search for the truth unless you are a mullah or ultra orthodox.
The "desert dogma" is ancient human take on god and thing change and will change...the notion of deity in the sky poking his finger has become irrelevant but not the concept of universal god/creator.

Weather one want/should believe or not it can be easily matter of fashion nowadays and how you want to be perceived by others.
In some places its very much matter of social pressure it seems....you don't want to be the resident moron after all.
Some wise people think that calling anyone with some sort of belief idiot will solve all problems of humanity.
Actually.. idiots will be idiots anyway but maybe more manageable.



.............

[Skybird]

Its not about necessity it is about lack of sufficient prove of otherwise.
Not so fast. Science forms hypothesis and exmaines it on the basis of a phenomeneon that is beign witnessed, perceived, observed. Or it starts exmaination on the gorund of an alraedy established theory that makes a prediction or forms a question that comes from that theory.

Just to pick any wild speculation without any hint to it out of the sky and then say that it is not poroven that it could be true gives it a status worthwhiule to be exmained, is absurd. You cannot prove bthe non-existence of something. Nor is it a valdia ergument that everything that is not proven wrong must be given the status of a valid theory or hypothesis. Go to menal asylum and listen to what the people tell you, the paranoids, the maniacs, the insane, the halucinating, the drugged! They all have things to tell about realities that you then would need to take as serious options as long as you have not proven that they do not exist. Pink elephants on the dark side of Pluto. Invisible tiny man sitting on their shoulder. Zeus and Hera sitting in Mount Olymp which just got translocated.

Did you know I am a magican? I just never show it. That is the trick to make people believe that I am not. I do not want to disturb their precious illusions that magic does not exist.

Let'S hear it by Bertrand Russell:

"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."



Scientist don't necessarily have to believe or disabled but in methodological manner can not claim either since there is no absolute prove of either....that is if they bother to consider it...and some do.



You just do not read what I said, in this thread as well as in earlier threads. To me, like to Dawkins since you mentioned him all by yourself, it is a question of likelihood, of probability. I do not parrot Dawkins here, I just found that he just thinks and says the same like I think. The probability of the God "thesis" being true has constantly shrunk the more knowedge we gained and the more we have explained life and universe ourselves. We are no longer the unedcuated shapard in the desert being scared by a thunder and thinking it was the voice of an angry god yelling at us because we slept with the wife of the neighbour. It is highly unlikely that God exists - that is what I say, because I see the probability for it being true in the range of 0.000000001% or so. Some scientists like Hawkins speak with total authority - or are posing as if having that - when saying that God does not exist. They express an absolute. That is not so much idiotic, or megalomaniac - the worse criticism to be raised is that it is a statement based on flawed use or flawed understanding of scientific methods. Science simply does not produce or postulate absolute truths. It is not in that business - religions are in that business - claiming absolute truths. Science never does, it produces theories. Any scientist taking the nature of his profession serious and being aware of the consequences of this methodology, will not claim something like absolute truths and final, total, absolute revelations. I think I have explained that often enough, haven'T i, here, and in other threads.


I don't think that general belief is anyhow waste of resources.

I can not see how it does interfere with the search for the truth unless you are a mullah or ultra orthodox.

Belief is believing. Searching for truths is wanting to know for sure and by own experience, by logic, by empiry. Knbowing is not believeing. Where you believe you know, in fact you believe exclusively. When you know - you must not limit yourself to just believe anymore. That is what sets both sides apart. Keep in mind: knowledge in scientific understanding again is based on probabilities, and statemenmts based on them. It is empirical. Knowledge is that kind of theory that has an extremely high probability, since it got verified accordingly often, so that it ranks as "almost certain" that what is "being known" is true and is real for sure, with the probability of it being false or some alternative being true instead being minimal. I for example am to 99.9999999...% certain that while I stand on an object with mass that rotates around an own axis, it creates gravity and thus the apple slipping out of my hand will fall down to earth, always. The probability is such that I take the comfortable shortcut and say: I know, I am certain, I must not mention the 99.99999...% all the time. I cannot rule out that there might be places in the univese where mass rotating around an own axis does create an effect that is opposite to attracting other mass, but pushing it away.


The "desert dogma" is ancient human take on god and thing change and will change...the notion of deity in the sky poking his finger has become irrelevant but not the concept of universal god/creator.
No? Then you are inconsequent. It is one and the same. And here I am with the probability of knowledge again, I say it is to 99.99999999% unlikely that that concept of yours holds any truth - scince has shown and taught us too much already. The mere object of your assumption - a deity, that is - also has no additional explanatory value, as I said in an early post above, since it raises exactly the same questions as any scientific cosmological theory. So, the principle of Occams razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor)demands to cut off this assumption.

[u crank]

The question of whether there is a god, is a scientific one.

From a purely scientific view, yes.

But what if, and I know it's a big if, God cannot be known by purely scientific means. Because of the very nature that God claims for Himself, creator and sustainer of all things, is it possible that He is outside the very system He has created? If this is true then any and all information from one system to the other is controlled by Him. This means that science, at it's very best, can only explain the creation, not the Creator. And by the way, science is doing this very well.

If you begin with the assumption that God is exactly who He says He is, proving or disproving His existence is a bold venture for humans to undertake. I'm not saying they should not attempt to, but I simply question our ability to do it. What if and again I know it's a big if, God is not molecules and atoms but something beyond our ability to comprehend on a scientific or even rational level? What if the only way we can know Him is on His terms?

Plus if there were a god, this would again raise questions: where is he, where did he come, what was before.

Again, if we begin with the assumption that God is who He says He is then then the answer to these questions is already known. The idea that God must "show" Himself is a naturally human desire, but the reason He doesn't physically do it I cannot say. After all I'm only human. :O:

Fluctuating Universe does not give answers to the Why? and the Before?, and God does not give answer to the Why? and the Before? Thus, the explanatory of the god speculation is not one inch bigger than that of Big Bang and Fluctuating Universe.

Yes. They are all theories.

However, the phenomenons and processes and events since the beginning, which took place, we can exmaine, we can perceive, we can reconstruct, we can explain. We even can make predictions of high probability. But God: we do not nor ever have seen him, we do not analyse him, do not check and test him, do not explain him, and have no evidence whatever that he even exiosts, his phenomenological existence is totally in doubt.

Again science has done a very good job in explaining what we know so far about our natural world and the universe. The creation if I may call it that. But it has failed completely in explaining the existence or non- existence of God.

I can think of a couple of reasons for this. One, there is no God to prove or disprove.

Or humans do not have the ability to prove or disprove His existence. If to say that this is not a possibility is the best argument that humans can use in regards to that possibility it is a poor argument. In this case a scientific explanation is not valid.

Science and god are not incompatible, said Tak. Well, that does not mean they are on same eye level.

Agreed.

As I have said Sky, all this is purely theoretical, perhaps even whimsical. I am in no way insistent about it, I simply offer it as a possibility. You know, what if? :hmmm:

[Skybird]

From a purely scientific view, yes.

But what if, and I know it's a big if, God cannot be known by purely scientific means. Because of the very nature that God claims for Himself, creator and sustainer of all things, is it possible that He is outside the very system He has created?
God never has claimed anything. It is people taking it upon them to talk on his behalf. Or so they say. It is also people claiming that he exists. But we have no hint that that is true. Quite the oppposite, the Bible is filled with so many contradictions in descriptions and claims and is wriong on the historical facts so often, that we should take it as what it is: a collected work
of man's fiction.

When you have an evidence for the existence of god that a judge at a court would allow as evidence, not as hint or opinion piece or rumour or hearsay or witness report, then there is a basis to form a hypothesis on God existing, and testing it. What there is in the bible, is a mixture of superstitious fiction, and witness "confessions" like at court: witness A saw the car from the left side and says it was green. Witness B saw it from the right side and say no, it was red. And witness C says No, the whole story was completely different , and cars were not involved. That'S why witness' reports are not taken as evidence at court. They are opinion pieces.


If this is true then any and all information from one system to the other is controlled by Him. This means that science, at it's very best, can only explain the creation, not the Creator. And by the way, science is doing this very well.
And if I had wings I could fly.

Science examines and then explains How things fuction, not Why the universe is there (if it is indeed...). Religions do not explain either the one, nor the other. They explain nothing. They just make claism and then expect that they are believed, blindly, against all odds.


If you begin with the assumption that God is exactly who He says He is, proving or disproving His existence is a bold venture for humans to undertake. I'm not saying they should not attempt to, but I simply question our ability to do it. What if and again I know it's a big if, God is not molecules and atoms but something beyond our ability to comprehend on a scientific or even rational level? What if the only way we can know Him is on His terms?

Why beginning weith that assumption? Why not beginning with assuming that there is a chinese teapot between Mars and Earth?


Again, if we begin with the assumption that God is who He says He is then then the answer to these questions is already known. The idea that God must "show" Himself is a naturally human desire, but the reason He doesn't physically do it I cannot say. After all I'm only human. :O:
What god has ever said anything somewhere, sometime? Again, it is people, human beings, telling stories.

There once was a fraudster with a known criminal record, that'S why he was chased away and his existence pretty much was in ruins. Then he came back to the town and told another of his storie. He claimed to have dug in the dirt and found the book Mormon by help of a fella named Moronis, and that book is devine and Hallelujah and he was the king'S finest messenger and so on and so on, and soince then the Mormons are being treated as somebody who deserve special respect, shall have the right to evade tax for community property, and must be seen as something "holy" (=special). Well. Since then there is golden-plated briefs for the gentlemen. The ladies - sorry, they come away empty-handed once again.

So tell me, why are you so eager to start with the assumption God exists? And why not Re? Isis? Wotan? Thor? Quetzalcoatl? Worm Uruboros? The holy Bimbam? The divine Ballaballa? I personally confess to the flying spaghetti monster.


Again science has done a very good job in explaining what we know so far about our natural world and the universe. The creation if I may call it that. But it has failed completely in explaining the existence or non- existence of God.
That is not its business. Logic knows that the non-existenc eof som,ethign cannot be proven. And as Russell already said and since him so amny others: we sceptics must not porove to you belpievers that your god doe snto exist. You put this faith into the world. You claim that something has to be added to this world, and that it is "God". You claim there is something. The burden of evidence is on your shoulders. Originator principle. Guys like me only say - there is nothing being found that speaks in favour of your assumption, and after that much data collcted by scienc and that long time in which we mutliplied our knowledge and form new questions as well, the probability that God exists has been reduced to such a tiny faction of a percent that it makes loittle sense to take that as a realistic chance at all.

Chances are greater that I win the record jackpot in lottery with my first ticket ever bought.

I can think of a couple of reasons for this. One, there is no God to prove or disprove.


Or humans do not have the ability to prove or disprove His existence. If to say that this is not a possibility is the best argument that humans can use in regards to that possibility it is a poor argument. In this case a scientific explanation is not valid.
I give no scientific expalantion to your idea at vall, science is not even bothered here. I think that chiense teapot indeed is only not to be seen becasue our science has not edcuatred us enough to build that kind of telescope needed to see it revovling around the sun, between Mars and Earth. This does of cours enot mean that one day we will not be able to build that big a telescope and then see it. Then science and the believers of the holy kettle will be one big happy family.

Until then I think most astronomers prefer coffee and Rum.


As I have said Sky, all this is purely theoretical, perhaps even whimsical. I am in no way insistent about it, I simply offer it as a possibility. You know, what if? :hmmm:
Some possibilities can be imagined that are so far-fetched that we rate them as fiction and fantasy. Like Chinese teapots between Mars and Earth, for example. Or would you take Middle Earth and Sauron as possibilities giving an alternative view at why there is bad things happening in the world?

[MH]

God never has claimed anything. It is people taking it upon them to talk on his behalf. Or so they say. It is also people claiming that he exists.?

God is theory then...just like multiverse theory might be which in turn is inconsistent with Occam's razor principle.
Multiverse theory may look much more insane but the different background may cause it to be more acceptable and worth the brain power?

[Sailor Steve]

God is theory then...
No. Theory requires evidence. Theory is built from observed phenomena. Science builds only upon what is there to be seen. Scientists also look for evidence that might prove their theories false. If there is no evidence then there can be no theory, just faith. They are not the same thing.

[MH]

Hypotesis ...sorry

[Skybird]

God is theory then...just like multiverse theory might be which in turn is inconsistent with Occam's razor principle.
Multiverse theory may look much more insane but the different background may cause it to be more acceptable and worth the brain power?

Multiverse and fluctuating universe are not the same. a multiverse of multiple parallel realites/univeres existing may be caused, so the idea, by fluctuating energy levels in the original mother universe, and then in the "offsprings". Fluctuating universe means that there is one universe born in a Big Bang, then expanding, than collapsing, reaching one final singular point - and then the next universe emerges in a Big Bang.

Multiverse also is called Bubble universe, since one imagines that energetic fluctuations in one universe causes new ones that emerge like bubbles appear in a liquid that you stirr, and that pop up to the surface. Multiverse is about parallel universes. Fluctuating universe does not necessarily imply that, as long as the currently existing universe does not produce "bubbles in the above mentioned sense". If that were the case however, and all these "bubbles" also would follow the path of the very first mother universe, then all what currently exists in realities and universes, parallel to each other, maybe should be differentiated by term, for example calling the total sum of all such universes a metaverse.

But all that is speculation and does not result from direct mathematical or theoretical derivations - as far as I know, and I will not claim to have a complete overview about these things, cosmological models of that kind are relatively new ground for me to read about, and I cannot be certain that I understood them all correctly, it all is on a quite abstract level. But one thing is worth to be understood: the idea of a fluctuating universe, a universe that expands and collapses between two Big Bangs, in an endless chain of Big Bangs, came from realising that the Big Bang model has one problem, and that is that it, like everything else in cosmological ideas, collides with the final existential questions. If there was just one Big Bang, the question is why it took place when before there was nothing. When there was nothing, why did it happen? And where? And how? How comes that from nothing suddenly comes all? One now has bypassed that problem by saying that the universes exist in an endless line, fluctuating between two Big Bangs. But by that one has only relocated the final existential question from 14 billion years ago to a point of time that is not really existing, but is endlessly far away: one says there is an infinite chain of Big Bangs. But this trick is just this: a trick. It delays the need to give an answer by placing that need into infinity and/or eternity.

But why and where is that?

We enter the unimaginable country here at the very latest, where only abstract mathematics adds structure to - well, to something. And the further we go, it seems the more bizarr and skurill it becomes.

The events since the (last?) Big bang we can examine and understand, since we observe the manifestations of the material consequences of it, and here we turn empirical findings into theory and improve it's probability to be correct (although theories also suffer setbacks, then they must be altered or replaced). But beyond that point 13.8 or 14 billion years of this universe's time ago - we cannot even form hypothesis, but are left to speculation and imagination.

If needed to choose I would say that certain mystic traditions are the best hope to touch upon that unknown territory. Or I used to think that, since I am no longer that convinced. Because, then again: our mystic traditions are man-made.

It is all deep wonder and mystery - at least that is certain for me. Wheter or not our life has a meaning, I just don't know. We are here, we perceive, we witness - and that is already fantastic. I don't know the Why of all things being, but they are fantastic for sure.

[u crank]

When you have an evidence for the existence of god that a judge at a court would allow as evidence, not as hint or opinion piece or rumour or hearsay or witness report, then there is a basis to form a hypothesis on God existing, and testing it.

I have no such evidence nor did I claim to have. I began the post with "But what if, and I know it's a big if, God cannot be known by purely scientific means."

But this is exactly what you are doing. I wasn't asking for a scientific or even logical explanation. My question was what if you can't. It was a somewhat rhetorical question. Hmm.. then what? This is where I would expect more of a philosophical answer, not hard science. Oh well.


So tell me, why are you so eager to start with the assumption God exists?

Eager may be the wrong word, but I have that assumption because I believe He does exist. Please don't ask me to prove it, because I can't. I made that and the other assumptions for the sake of the discussion. As to the burden of evidence, the originator principal, well that only comes into play if one is trying to convince someone else. I'm not. I'm just asking some questions. And I thank you for your opinions.

In this 'discussion', I don't believe there are just hardcore reductionists and snake handlin', tongue talkin' believers. In between there is a wide variety of opinion and ideas. And questions.

It is all deep wonder and mystery - at least that is certain for me. Wheter or not our life has a meaning, I just don't know. We are here, we perceive, we witness - and that is already fantastic.

Very well said.

[Skybird]

I have no such evidence nor did I claim to have. I began the post with "But what if, and I know it's a big if, God cannot be known by purely scientific means."
And I answered with Russell to illustrate what I think of too wild speculations. Speculatioins can be pushed and hairs can be split until the day when hell freezes over.


But this is exactly what you are doing. I wasn't asking for a scientific or even logical explanation. My question was what if you can't. It was a somewhat rhetorical question. Hmm.. then what? This is where I would expect more of a philosophical answer, not hard science. Oh well.
If God would exist in the form like the bible swingers say, and Satan as well, and they are about to roast me, I still would stand before this God and ask him about the many self-contradictions in his record and behaviour, and why I should claim responsibility for my design and the results for it when He has made me by his own image, and I would tell him that I refuse to feel sorry for having doubted Him, since it was His nature making me to doiubt him, and that he is the eveil slimey underhanded basterd for sure as which i always havew depicted him if he makes me suffering penalty for his own failures in creation, and I would tell him that he can shove his sentencing into his divinely borderless anus, and that I will reserve Him a place in hell right next to me, so that He will need to deal with me on the day he gets caught by his own cyncism and brutality and imperfection and serves his penalty down there.


Eager may be the wrong word, but I have that assumption because I believe He does exist. Please don't ask me to prove it, because I can't. I made that and the other assumptions for the sake of the discussion. As to the burden of evidence, the originator principal, well that only comes into play if one is trying to convince someone else. I'm not. I'm just asking some questions. And I thank you for your opinions.
The burden of evidence is with those wanting to add somethign to reality that seems to be not there. If you claim that our understanding of reality and existence must be altered by adding deities to it, and not just any deities of the many we had, but this deity, you have to give a reason for why that should be needed. Just making things more complicated because you believe something, is - scientifically and from a position of reason - invalid (Occams razor).


In this 'discussion', I don't believe there are just hardcore reductionists and snake handlin', tongue talkin' believers. In between there is a wide variety of opinion and ideas. And questions.


Me - a reductionist? Far from that. I am just very picky, maybe even pedantic, regarding methodology. And I differentiate things that need to be differentiated. But a sceptic knows what he is sceptic about, else he is not sceptic but only prejudiced. I try to keep my mind open at many directions. But on ground that I have repeatedly examined and found to be arid and barren, I do not try to plant any longer, which is a decision I make on the basis of empiry again. If I should try that once again, however, I need to be given a convincing reason first - for example that I have looked at it only in three of the four seasons. Just saying "But maybe this time it works" after a certain ammount of earlier unsuccessful attempts, is not convincing for me.

That is what learning is all about. It is a form of trust based on empirically proven justification.

[u crank]

Me - a reductionist?

I wasn't referring to you. That's way to extreme a position. :D