Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’(quantamagazine.org) |
Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’(quantamagazine.org) |
The video/animations were pretty nice though.
Sounds like your average codebase.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/proton-contain-charm...
“The proton is an incredibly complex particle that physicists are still working to fully understand. Experiments over decades have revealed that the proton is not just three quarks, but contains a sea of transient gluons and quark-antiquark pairs. The HERA accelerator provided evidence of this "gluon dandelion" structure by detecting low-momentum quarks and antiquarks emerging from gluon splitting. Most recently, machine learning analysis of thousands of proton snapshots found traces of heavy charm quarks within the proton, suggesting its makeup is a quantum mixture of different quark states. Future experiments like the Electron-Ion Collider aim to map out the spins and 3D structure of quarks and gluons inside the proton.
One interesting finding highlighted is the recent discovery, through machine learning analysis of past proton data, that the proton contains traces of heavy charm quarks, implying its composition involves different quark combinations in a quantum superposition. This suggests the proton's makeup is more complex than previously understood.”
So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes?
Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person).
my question is... why? why must protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge? if the proton is this insanely complex thing, by what rule does it end up equaling exactly the opposite charge of an electron? why not a charge of +1.8e, or +3e, or 0.1666e, etc? Certainly it is convenient that a proton and electron complement each other, but what makes that the case? Does this question even make sense?
so, there's a concept of a "positron", which I can understand - of course it has charge +e, it is the "opposite" of an electron. it is an anti-electron. at least that makes some kind of sense. but a proton is made up of this complex soup of other elementary particles following all these crazy rules, and yet it also ends up being exactly +e.
A lot of these things coalesce until they are stable enough they don't fall apart. If there is a stable form and you have enough of them, eventually you get a lot of stable forms.
It is not some magical thing that makes all this balance, it is more of a settling thing where things eventually drop to a stable state. There is lots of matter that is still unstable.
Put in terms of elementary particles, why is it that the ratio of electric charge between a quark and an electron is either 1:3 or 2:3?
> There is lots of matter that is still unstable.
What are you referring to with this?
But also in some sense "it has to be that way," since without charge balance atoms wouldn't exist as we know them, and thus neither would all the chemistry that creates the macroscopic world we inhabit.
Imagine that physics is like Microsoft COM (or C++ pure virtual function tables), so there's a base IUnknown interface, hiding innumerably different possible concrete implementation classes, that can expose arbitrarily many other abstract interfaces, so you can call iUnknown->QueryInterface(uuid, &otherInterface) to ask for other interfaces like IAtom, IElectron, IProton, IQuark, IParticle, and IWave, and there are also many other obscure higher level dynamic and reflective interfaces like IDispatch, ITypeInfo, and IPersist, just waiting to be discovered and exploited, if only we knew the right uuid to ask for.
And then physics research boils down to QueryInterfacing objects with random uuids, and when that succeeds in finding new interfaces, calling their random functions with random arguments to see what happens. That's probably what the black hole supercomputer at the center of the galaxy is doing.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257
If the universe, at the time of the big bang, had no net charge to begin with, and charge is conserved, then it follows that we would have particles whose charge will on net cancel out, and therefore charge would be quantized in some reasonable way. Note that there are doubly charged particles (e.g Delta++) but they're not stable. Some theories do predict fractionally charged particles (millicharged is the term of art) but there is no experimental evidence.
Now, was the universe neutral to begin with? If it wasn't , then that would presumably leave a strong imprint on early universe cosmology. I believe that current measurements of galaxy structure formation, cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis probably place extremely strong constraints on early universe neutrality, though there may be caveats I'm not aware of.
A neutron can decay into a proton, electron, and anti-neutrino. So maybe one way to think of it is that a proton is a neutron that is missing an electron, that's why it has the opposite charge of the electron.
In the Standard Model properties are defined as relationships within/between symmetry groups. There are only so many things you can do to/with/in a symmetry group, and that's where the quantisation comes from.
But... that's a mathematical metaphor applied to observations. It's a good fit, but it doesn't explain why it's those symmetry groups and not others, or why symmetry groups are a good fit at all.
There's likely some kind of fundamental mechanism that generates these symmetries, and no one knows what that is.
Wikipedia suggests the quarks that make up the proton have charge ⅔e and -⅓e
(Of course, absent some good reason, one wouldn't expect the two screenings to exactly balance...)
Charge is not actually a quantity on the real number line; it's more of a "count" of something. Not sure what exactly. The "topological defect" model of charges in 2d is a decent analogy though, in which a charge can be e.g. a count of how many vortices there are in a field which are oriented in a certain direction (picture a bathtub with a bunch of drains, and ask, how many tornado-like vortices, if we count clockwise vortices as +1 and counterclockwise as -1, are there? The number can vary but obviously it has to be an integer because what would half a vortex even mean?)
But that model is too simple for charge, since quarks have +-1/3 or 2/3 but the result always adds up to an integer in a hadron. Maybe it's something like a type of winding number or linking number? I don't know. Whatever it is, when the "correct" explanation is found, it will be obvious why it is always an integer and why its constituents are always 1/3 or 2/3, and it will no longer seem interesting to ask why it can't be any old fraction, because that misunderstands the "type" of object that it is counting.
These 8 particles and their 8 antiparticles are located in the corners of 2 cubes of unit edge in that 3-dimensional charge space. One cube is in the first octant of the coordinates, with 1 corner in the origin, while the other cube is in the opposite octant, also with 1 corner in the origin.
The neutrino and the antineutrino are in the origin, while the electron and the positron are in the opposite corners of the cubes, in the points (-1,-1,-1) and (1,1,1), and the quarks and the antiquarks are in the 12 off-diagonal corners of the 2 cubes.
As functions of the position vector of a particle in this 3-dimensional charge space, the electric charge is the component of the position vector that is parallel to the cube diagonal that passes through origin and the corners of the electron and positron, while the corresponding component that is orthogonal to the diagonal is the so-called color charge (hence chromodynamics; while the electric forces attempt to make null the 1-dimensional electric charge, the strong forces attempt to make null the 2-dimensional color charge), which is non-null only for the quarks and antiquarks, which are off-diagonal, and it is null for electron, neutrino and their antiparticles.
The projections of the off-diagonal corners of the cubes on the diagonal are at one third and two thirds distances from origin, which is why the electric charges of the quarks are 1/3 and 2/3 in absolute value (where the unit of electric charge is the electron charge, i.e. the diagonal of one unit cube), even if in the charge space all the particles have coordinates that are either 1 or 0 in absolute value.
While this symmetry of the charges is interesting, it is not known why it is so.
In any case, if this symmetry had not existed, the Universe as we know it could not exist, because this symmetry ensures that in the nucleons the total color charge of the quarks is null, so they no longer interact through strong forces (except at very short distances, where the residual forces bind the nucleons into nuclei) and at the next level the total electric charge of the atoms is null, so they no longer interact through electric forces (except at very short distances, where the residual forces bind the atoms into molecules).
The same symmetry exists for the other 2 groups of 8 particles and 2 groups of 8 antiparticles, where the muon and the tauon correspond to the electron, because those particles have greater masses but identical charges with the first groups.
In the initial state of the Big Bang, this symmetry of the charges ensures that even if there were only particles in equal numbers and without any antiparticles, the total electric charge and the total color charge of all matter was null.
While the neutrinos do not contribute to any of the charges, their presence ensures that the total spin, i.e. the total angular momentum, was also null.
Is this image another visualization of the same thing?:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_Model.svg
We know that the electric charge is not fundamental, but a projection of the weak isospin and hypercharge after the Higgs field symmetry breaking. How are weak isospin and hypercharge related to the 2 cubes?
According to QED's spin origin of charge, it's because charge comes from spin. What values a particle's spin can take are restricted to certain integer or half-integer values.
Children have the remarkable ability to see the world as it truly is, and so are able to ask the most profound questions. As adults, we learn to obfuscate our, ah, knowledge deficiencies in various ways, and so lose that ability over time. I'm of the opinion that great physicists are like children in being able to see through to the heart of the matter, and ask -- and answer -- questions that matter. This is certainly a theme you can see with Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, and others.
Why do I say this? Because GP's question was profound, and saying "it's because charge comes from spin" is the sort of obfuscatory answer I see most physicists give very, very often when they're faced with such questions.
That's completely aside from the fact that "it's because charge comes from spin" is entirely incorrect. All charged particles have spin, but not all particles with the same spin and other similar properties are charged.
"Because it is" is not a helpful answer to "why?"
All it is is a web of predictions: we do A then B seems to happen, reliably. We then transform it into a story of sorts, to categorize and classify, find patterns and correlations—that’s just how our minds work—and those models are useful, as they create shortcuts for more useful predictions—but it’s all too easy to start thinking of entities these models describe as if they were real, concrete things (that’s also how our minds work).
I recommend to maintain a sort of Schrödinger’s treatment (they exist if convenient, but otherwise they don’t really) for things described in physical models, because none of the above-mentioned categorization and classification is set in stone. None of it can be proven to be objectively true, unless you have some sort of exclusive access to the fabric of underlying reality that bypasses your consciousness.
With that in mind, you would see that the weird coincidences are not that problematic. It just means there is a better model out there, and that will always be the case.
In a simplistic way, I see a neutron star as just being a lump of regular (atomic) matter where the high pressure has forced all the electrons into the protons.
Question for someone who might know: Was pressure so high in the early universe that matter originally formed as neutrons, then as pressure reduced electrons and protons were able to separate? Sort of like the formation of a neutron star in reverse?
There is no reason to prefer any of the possible particles, but as all of them are unstable - minus the proton - they eventually decay to that state. (neutrons are not unstable in nuclei and such).
NB: this is quite simplistic and I skipped many details
For this to work, there have to be as many quarks in the proton as the denominator of the quark charge fraction. (And what mechanism forces that?)
And why should the charges on quarks be some nice low-number fraction of the charge on the electron? Why not sqrt(3) or something?
- Take a neutron, pull out an electron (and an antineutrino), and you're left with a proton.
- Asking why protons and electrons are so different is a little bit like asking why hydrogen and iodine have exactly opposite charges even though iodine is so much more complex: they're made of different things
Richard Feynman on why questions
For instance fundamental charges are a lot like positive and negatively-oriented vortices in a fluid, which when they touch cancel each other out and radiate energy away. They're not _exactly_ like that, but they're a lot like it, and that's a model people can understand without knowing the first thing about quantum field theory. Sure, you won't understand from that why like-charges repel each other, not really, but if you play with the analogy for a while it starts to seem why that might be true as well.
(See https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/09/24/samuel-becketts-guide-... for some pictures of this... I wish I had better though.)
Magnetism is quite a bit trickier to explain in this model but it can done with some work. In particular: a charge radiates little linear packets of energy just by existing; when one of these packets hits another charged particle it moves a tick closer or further away (based on +/-). A current/moving charge/magnetic dipole radiates away little spiraling packets of energy which are aligned in the plane orthogonal to the conventional magnetic field; when these hit another charged particle they get rotated a tick.
That’s not a satisfying answer but we don’t have a better one in the realm of science. All we have left is either randomness/serendipity or spirituality/religion.
There is nothing convenient, it's as logical as saying that you were tshirts when you go out: there is nothing extraordinary that one torso = one tshirt, as having two or zero tshirts wouldn't help: 0 would make you want one more tshirt, 2 would make you want to remove one.
“changes its appearance depending on how it is probed"
"you can’t even imagine how complicated it is"
"the proton contains traces of particles called charm quarks that are heavier than the proton itself"
I always think it is the kind of excuse a schoolkid would give their teachers for their calculations being wrong
> "Researchers recently discovered that the proton sometimes includes a charm quark and charm antiquark, colossal particles that are each heavier than the proton itself."
You articulated my feeling better than I could. Surely this is something the researchers have accounted for and there's a good explanation (whether I can actually understand it is another story)
It's explained better here.
tl;dr; is that they are virtual particles and don't have the same mass as a "real" charm quark.
Another weird thing are virtual particles that can popup without energy. They are similar to real energetic particles in a sense that they are manifestation of the same quantum field (for example charm quark field) but they are different from real particles because they don't carry energy and thus can't live long.
World is very weird. Math works though.
Proton is just a weird ball of bubbling energy that stays in one place because up quark and down quark quantum fields got "stuck" together there through complicated colored strong force. But there's so much energy there that wants to get free but can't that there are constantly things popping in and out of existence.
I’m getting really tired of hazy probability distributions and waves that only collapse and materialize when observed. I 100% accept that QM is a useful tool to model our current understanding based on increasingly sophisticated observations, but I fundamentally don’t believe that a proton is some shape shifting quantum soup of energy that doesn't form until someone comes around and thinks about it. That is unless reality is approximated and expensive compute is directed only toward what’s being observed to better enhance the simulation.
I probably need to add that I am also tired of simulation theory.
I really suspect we just aren't good enough at observing things or don’t exist in enough dimensions to understand what we’re observing. And so the cross sections we are able to pin down end up looking like they are part of some probabilistic system.
I still have bets on this all being a massive game of life.
This is why the LHC (and other hadron colliders) has to run at such a high luminosity (collision rate). Most of the time, when it collides two protons, the parts that interact are only carrying a tiny fraction of the energy, so you don't get the interesting high energy physics you want to probe.
Well, maybe someone could imagine it, otherwise, all that complexity would have led to a gargantuan number of bugs and the universe would have crashed..
The real question is, are we running on bare metal, in a VM, or in a container?
We can't be running on the bare hardware; there is clearly an OS enforcing the hardware abstraction (e.g. every electron is identical).
But is each universe its own process? What happens if you fork()?
Genuinely curious if there’s any scientifically useful direction to this question
> This has always seemed to me one of the best arguments against the simulation hypothesis.
Can you expand on that? Are you saying that if we were in a simulation, the observed complexity of the universe (or the complexity of particle physics) would have caused the simulation to crash? Ergo, we are not in a simulation?
“The proton is a quantum mechanical object that exists as a haze of probabilities until an experiment forces it to take a concrete form.”
Could gravity be the effect of mass in an indefinite form? As sort of a vacuum in spacetime?
Definitely not. For one thing, gravity isn't just mass. The gravity of a moving baseball is higher than a nonmoving baseball. The gravity of a charged battery is higher than a discharged battery. Same protons, neutrons, and electrons, but if you change their velocity or how they are arranged then they have more gravity. It's the stress-energy tensor, not just the mass (by which you mean matter?).
> Could gravity be the effect of mass in an indefinite form?
A very clear way to see this is not true is to compare stars and black holes to quarks. The space between quarks acts like they are different, larger or smaller quarks depending on how the real quarks happen to be arranged at that moment.
So, if we apply the same idea to a very large star, it would sometimes act like a black hole or a supernova or a star depending on where it was and how it happened to be doing and also maybe just sometimes spontaneously?
But mostly, if it was really far away you would expect it to act like a black hole, because from a far distance it seems like its all in one small point, and a black hole is an irreversible phase transition. But that doesn't happen, and stars look like stars no matter how far away you are. If reality worked like this, we'd expect nearby galaxies to have almost no dark matter and faraway galaxies to have lots and be very small. But instead galaxies and dark matter are pretty much the same no matter how far away they are from us.
This is a pretty ill-posed question though. I'm cramming it into a box that has an interesting answer just for fun, and I don't think it answers much of what you are asking.
I find the concept of duality and replication in physics very interesting. Everything seems to have an opposite, with properties such that when these opposites come together, they form a bigger unit, which itself has an opposite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycvlJ9XMd94&ab_channel=cakta...
Something that we will continuously bump against without being able to resolve further, by definition.
Is there such a thing as Gödel's incompleteness theorems in physics?
It's kind of "common sense", if you understand how all the components on a circuit board function individually, then you can piece together how the entire board will function. In computer science, you can reduce everything to operations comparing 1s and 0s, then use that to deterministically recreate higher-level abstractions like strings, floats, and colors on a monitor.
Then there's quantum physics, which turns reductionism on its head. Things are supposed to get less complicated as you get smaller, not more complicated! It's like the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know.
So I think we can give it priority on that one :)
Physically can proton 1 behave differently to proton 2 modulo the usual quantum uncertainty around speed/position.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indistinguishable_particles
(I know, infinity is not a number, really)
Neutrons are (primarily) UDD while protons are (primarily) UUD. Although I do wonder if this charm+anticharm ghost exists in other hadrons
Yes, this is correct.
> Although I do wonder if this charm+anticharm ghost exists in other hadrons
Yes, neutrons and all the other hadrons have virtual pairs of char-anticharm quarks. (And some of them have actual charm or anticharm quarks.)
Lazily evaluated until there's a probability it has to interact with something. Since you can never really see the value of the actual function, but only see what it looks like when it's forced to evaluate a computation in some context, an interaction, you can never get a precise definition of the function
It's not an object at all. The reason quantum physics is so weird, is that our conceptual model of things existed ng as discrete objects no longer works. An "object" is like a conceptual convenience method on some region of spacetime.
Given that charm quarks are heavier than the proton, you’d expect to only find them in deep inelastic collisions when they are produced in pairs with an anti-quark, so it is surprising that there’s an asymmetry.
Is that the same thing that affects objects at our scale, or does it mean something different?
I took some advanced courses and from my understanding it comes down to the pieces that make up protons and electrons. In the quantum realm it adds some fuzziness to the answer by introducing quarks. The net charge may be one thing but I would defer to a physics paper for a deeper understanding.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/21753/why-do-ele...
Or perhaps -- it's a constant in the simulator source code.
It's been a while since I finished undergrad so my knowledge is rusty, but I don't recall any isolatable particles whose charge wasn't -1e, 0, or 1e. If that's the case, the easiest explanation for why they have the same charge is that if they didn't have opposite charges there wouldn't be anything holding them together in an atom.
in these harmonic measures, ‘gaps’ between various levels naturally would arise from simple (x) op. For non-relative prime members, the mapping n x n is all over the place but for relative prime members, n x n always results in another relative prime in the ring, so, naturally those ‘lines’ are ‘stable’ and ‘in phase’ so ‘manifested’.
in other words, there is stuff in the R realm — in between ‘quanta’ — but we’re not allowed, capable, ever, of seeing or measureing it.[edit: as in they ‘exist’ in the same realm that (sqrt -1) i exists in — an unseen realm we call ‘imaginary’..]
Our universe may be the trillionth trillionth one created and we are in an anthropomorphic universe just like we are on an anthropomorphic planet. It always makes me grateful.
>The charge on a proton is +1.602 x 10-19 C, and the charge on an electron is -1.602 x 10-19 C.
Perhaps "complexity" and "anti-complexity" are the forces that attract. Order and chaos. To have one you must have the other. Without both nothing about this universe would work.
Sorry, I'm high.
The charge coincidence is one of the reasons that scientists are looking for a grand unified theory -- part of which would ultimately mean that in some sense quarks and electrons are _the same thing_, and the electroweak and strong forces would be unified.
The mirror of the leptons would be quarks. Up, down, charm, beauty, top, and bottom ... and their antiparticles. Twelve again! Their charges are 2/3e, -1/3e, 2/3e, -1/3e, 2/3e, -1/3e, and the reverse for the antiquarks. One bundle of three quarks is the proton, and it happens to be 2/3e + 2/3e + -1/3e. But so what? There's all kinds of other bundles. Three-quark bundles are typically hadrons (heavyweight) and two-quark bundles are mesons (medium weight). So you have a lot of choices on the other side!
The choices are caused by something called color confinement, which states that you will not get quarks alone. Indeed, you can take a pair of quarks in the aforementioned meson, and if you stretched them further and further apart, when the bond between them (mediated by gluons) snapped, you would have put so much energy into the stretching and snapping to create two new quarks, one at each end of your broken rubber band. Just as you cannot cut a piece of string such that it only has one end, so you have it with color confinement. I don't want to get too far away from the main point but because of this, quarks are found (normally, outside of Big-Bang quark-gluon plasmas) in combination ... and so eventually one of the combinations has a charge number resembling that of the electron.
Also, positrons aren't really the opposite of electrons. They're opposite on the matter/antimatter axis, which automatically flips the charge, q. They are not opposite along the lepton-quark axis, nor are they opposite along the electron-neutrino axis. Instead of one mirror, imagine many mirrors at angles to one another, and "opposite" becomes a less useful term.
This would put the fundamental leptons being only the electron (and its antiparticle) with the neutrino and the photon.
Such an idea would upset the "symmetry" model.
This is in opposition to e.g. mass. There is no elementary mass, and so no particles need to have the same mass.
The big bang is a "scientific myth" - a story that describes the creation of the world in sciency terms.
Is there superposition with electron charge states?
Unlike protons an neutrons, electrons are considered elementary particles that can't be broken down any further, so their charge can not be "divided" into something less than 1.
I think it makes sense to draw an analogy to evolution—stable arrangements of elementary particles that (somehow) reinforce similar arrangements around them will come to dominate the observable universe.
In a CRT monitor, you have a ray of electrons that travel in vaccum and it is electricity outside wires. With a similar device, you can create a ray of protons and have also electricity with protons instead of electrons.
Another posibility is to use a water solution with acid. A part of the electricity is made of H+ that are just protons. (Actually, each proton is atached to a water molecule, so it's more like H2O+ than a plain H+.)
I'm triying to imagine a wire where protons can move. I don't think it's theoreticaly impossible, but they are mmuch heavier and bigger than electrons, so they it looks very difficult to find a material where they can move freely.
Electrons, on the other hand, can move between atoms, which allows them to form an electrical current.
There are special cases, but that’s the basic answer.
Who says we don't always use it?
"Sure, positive and negative self-talk can have significant effects on various aspects of mental health, performance, and well-being. Here are some scientific research findings on this topic:
Impact on Stress and Coping Mechanisms:
Research suggests that positive self-talk can help individuals cope with stress more effectively by promoting adaptive coping strategies and reducing negative emotional responses. Conversely, negative self-talk is associated with increased levels of stress and maladaptive coping behaviors such as avoidance (Hanssen, M., Vancleef, L., Vlaeyen, J., & Peters, M., 2013).
Influence on Performance:
Studies have shown that positive self-talk can enhance performance in various domains such as sports, academics, and professional settings. Positive self-talk is associated with increased confidence, motivation, and persistence, leading to improved performance outcomes. Conversely, negative self-talk can undermine performance by inducing self-doubt, anxiety, and distraction (Hardy, J., Hall, C., & Hardy, L., 2004).
Effects on Mental Health:
Positive self-talk is linked to better mental health outcomes, including higher levels of self-esteem, resilience, and subjective well-being. On the other hand, negative self-talk is associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and lower overall psychological functioning (Marshall, S., Parker, P., Ciarrochi, J., Sahdra, B., Jackson, C., & Heaven, P., 2015).
Physiological Responses:
Research suggests that self-talk can influence physiological responses such as heart rate, cortisol levels, and immune function. Positive self-talk is associated with reduced physiological arousal and stress reactivity, whereas negative self-talk can trigger a stress response and impair immune function (Penley, J., Tomaka, J., & Wiebe, J., 2002).
Neurological Correlates:
Neuroimaging studies have identified neural correlates of self-talk, showing that positive self-talk activates regions of the brain associated with reward processing, cognitive control, and emotional regulation. In contrast, negative self-talk is linked to increased activity in brain regions involved in threat perception and emotional reactivity (Morin, A., & Uttl, B., 2013)."
Anyway, I'm sure you're not beating yourself up all the time about being a dummy, but like I said in the beginning of this response, just a friendly suggestion about mindset and word-choice :)
Edit: after verification, the smallest possible charge is e/3 (the quantum charge), e is the elementary charge.
A relevant link to for the question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_charge?useskin=vect...
Just to emphasize how extreme this dichotomy is, not only is quantum mechanics correct (in that it's a predictive model), it's the most correct physical theory humans have ever devised in that the measurements there have more significant figures than anything else.
I totally back the scientists and wish I could understand it better but I always like to have a chuckle that the crazy sounding parts are just the scientists making up stuff
Several studies have been done into whether practicing theoretical physicists using QM in their everyday work agree on the most basic tenets of the field.
Spoiler: they disagree on every aspect while simultaneously assuming that their opinions are correct and that everyone else agrees with them.
That’s how religions work, not how science does. Factions instead of consensus. Branches splitting off all the time and never supplanting the majority. Orthodoxy (Copenhagen). Shunning anyone that steps out of line (Everett). Refusing to question the holy texts, etc…
Another key symptom is requiring members to prove their devotion by saying and doing things that are obvious nonsense. Bending their common sense to the will of the group. In Christianity this is the trinity: one God that is three. In QM it’s the wave-particle duality, which is just nonsense. You can’t have a point with a kilometre long wavelength!! Yet, we are to believe (on faith!) that radio waves are made of photons.
Turns out that magical thinking and religiosity is the essential nature of humans, especially in large groups.
Whenever there is insufficient evidence to bring everyone into line, the line splinters into warring factions where the best argument each tribe has is: “my tribal leader said so!”
Considering how you can test statistics in real life (ex: Buffon's Needle) there must be something very "statistical" embedded in reality itself (it is true that quantum mechanics pushes everything very far so can seem to complex).
If they are all bound into macroscopic object they are sharper and as a result they can make other elementary particles they "measure" (interact with) also sharper.
If particles interact with fuzzier part of macroscopic object, like an edge of a slit, they can become fuzzier, more wavy.
So the proton really is that shapeshifting soup. Never anything else. If you hit it with something hard enough it becomes momentarily disturbed into a bit sharper state that can tell us something but it immediately goes back to soup because of chaotic microscopic interactions inside.
The matter looks sharp only on macroscopic level. At the level of particles it's always fuzzy, but we have trouble of ditching the concept of little balls bouncing of each other because the math describing exchange of energy and momentum between those fuzzy "waves" looks like there were some small balls bouncing. But this comes, I believe accidentally only from the fact that all forces have sort of spherical symmetry.
What they mean by the "haze of probabilities" is that you need to iterate over all possible configurations of the gluons and quarks in the proton to produce experimental predictions.
It is for sure computationally ludicrous, but conceptually it's really not better or worse than to say that particles are billiard balls moving around by Newton's Equations. You're just more used to the latter, but spend some time working with for example Lattice QCD and you get completely used to the former being the "actual" underlying physics rules.
As you said, it's implies that we're not failing to measure some "hidden variable" that would explain probabilities away, but that the vary nature of these objects is probabilistic.
"I fundamentally don’t believe that a proton is some shape shifting quantum soup of energy that doesn't form until someone comes around and thinks about it." is the way quantum mechanics is often portrayed in pop sci, but it simply can't be true. Quantum mechanics existed just fine before there was anyone to observe it and think about it.
After you link it up with the apparatus, it is pulled into the system as a new part of it, and so on. The more stuff you pull into the system, the less number of different configurations you sum over, eventually you end up with a single configuration with an observer that has a clear measurement result in her mind. This process is what is called "wavefunction collapse" in old physics texts (and a lot of modern pop-sci accounts).
What sets this apart from other purely probabilistic theories is that it's non-local, the entire linked system from the proton to the measurement apparatus to the observer has to be taken into account in the calculations if you are to be thorough. In local theories you can separate the parts of the system and handle them separately, like you could say "there is a 1% probability that a charm quark pops out in the upper left part of the proton every second" etc. You can't really do this in QM/QFT, and this is what in essence leads to all of the counter-intuitive results and confusion..
You might be right!
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-h...
“Simulation theory” suggests we’re part of some other being’s simulation.
This is a pop-sci analogy. I find it tiring as well.
The many worlds interpretation doesn't paint the picture this way. It paints it as a recursive for-each loop iterating over all solutions to the next step of the physics function.
> I still have bets on this all being a massive game of life.
...on the back of a giant turtle, amiright?
How bout placing your bets on this instead: it's the evaluation of an algorithm ("physics") on a data structure ("the universe"), and like all algorithms, exists eternally and independent of any substrate.
They're not. In general, once you take a lot of little things to make a big thing, you may notice a bunch of emergent properties, but one of the major emergent property is that... all the variability cancels out, or averages to a simple quantity. See e.g. all the complex dancing of great many particles making up everyday objects, that all average to a simple scalar number we call "temperature".
A natural thing's behaviour can't be reduced to the sum of its parts. Example: an organ, taken out of an organism, stops being an organ and becomes a lump of rotting flesh. Its behaviour fundamentally and completely changes. So an organ can only be considered an organ insofar as it's a part of an organism. Similarly, an oxygen atom within a water molecule displays vastly different properties from those it would display when a free radical (or as part of an O2 molecule). Examples could be multiplied. So I don't think quantum physics is any different from the 'macro' world in this regard.
So I think the difference is natural-artificial, not quantum-macro.
This is why the "god of the gaps" critique is so short-sighted. It relies on the assumption that as science progresses it will "close the gaps". In reality the opposite happens. Another example is the cell -- in Darwin's day it was thought to be a simple thing, but then we learned more about it and it turned out to be monstrously complex and the mystery intensifies.
A shift in the position of the faithful from "this an accurate account of how the world was created direct from the creator" to "well actually that stuff was all metaphorical but the Big Bang must have been God's moment because you can't explain anything that happened before then" is not a trend in favour of the explanatory power of religion.
In the case of protons (or for that matter cells), religion never had anything to say about them in the first place never mind an explanation that's more compatible with quantum phenomena than early 20th century physics, and it's quantum physicists not priests that are the people busy making them do weird things in particle accelerators and saying 'told you this might happen'.
(Also, someone should let the theists know that it's the quirkiness of quarks that proves God's design so they stop writing about how it's the perfect orderliness of atomic structure that's God's design)
This is not the same as "spontaneous proton decay", which has not been observed.
Charge conservation still applies: vacuum polarization can only modify the apparent charge distribution, not the net value.
Meanwhile those with too few might be “crystals” with no dynamism.
In all kinds of systems including computational models like cellular automata there exists a threshold known as the “edge of chaos” where among other interesting things universal computation becomes possible.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos
Maybe our universe is in such a zone. Not too simple for dynamic open ended phenomena, not too complex for order.
I do not remember now where to find a suitable figure, but these are the coordinates of the corners of the 2 cubes:
neutrino & antineutrino: (0,0,0)
electron: (-1,-1,-1)
positron: (1,1,1)
down quarks: (-1,0,0), (0,-1,0), (0,0,-1)
down antiquarks: (1,0,0), (0,1,0), (0,0,1)
up quarks: (1,1,0), (1,0,1), (0,1,1)
up antiquarks: (-1,-1,0), (-1,0,-1), (0,-1,-1)
The particle-antiparticle pairs have an inversion symmetry over the origin.
The quark triplets have a rotational symmetry of order 3 around the principal diagonal of the cubes that passes through the origin.
The weak isospin and the hypercharge are an alternative equivalent expression of the charges, but I prefer this picture as it is easier to understand and visualize. It also demonstrates the quantized nature of the charges that determine the strong and electromagnetic interactions, and that they are based on the same quantum, so they are not independent interactions. The also quantized spin must be added as a fourth value, to completely determine the weak interactions too.
The various sets of values that can be taken as charges are related by bijections (one-to-one correspondences), so which are taken as fundamental is a matter of convention.
In any case the chromodynamics is useful only for providing qualitative insights and for distinguishing things that are possible from those that are impossible. It is completely useless for computing quantities that are useful in practice.
As it is also obvious in the parent article, it is still impossible to compute the mass and the magnetic moment of the proton, much less for any more complex nuclei or hadrons.
If you refuse to ask further questions, yes. If you keep asking why, it opens the door to what charge fundamentally is.
> All charged particles have spin, but not all particles with the same spin and other similar properties are charged
Spin and charge are fundamentally connected. That said, I was answering according to SOC, which remains a hypothesis.
No, the Einstein field equations actually wrap things up pretty neatly as far as why it happens (although not how). Energy, momentum, stress, and mass are all the same. Energy turns into matter and vice versa. E=mc^2.
Going faster doesn't change your velocity relative to light, just your reference frame. In the same way, getting heavier changes your reference frame. If you're changing your relative time, you're also changing how far you're traveling from an external reference. And if the distance is changing, it means space is warping... which is exactly what gravity is. Energy/mass/momentum warps space and that gives us gravity.
It's a fraction because we simply decided it was easier to describe an electron's charge as "e" and quark charges as being a fraction of that. It's entirely by convention.
We could've just as easily have described, like you mentioned, a quark to have either +-q or +-2q charge and electrons have -3q (where q=(1.602176634×10^−19)/3 C). We just happened to find electrons significantly before. It's also convenient as we don't see free quarks so every charge we see in the universe is a multiple of e, there's no advantage to going smaller than that.
The issue with giving people an intuitive model that's not at the same level of complexity to the mathematical models, in my experience, is that a lot of people, including out-of-field experts then run with the intuitive model into bizarre territory and treat it as a prediction of the original tested theory. They reason correctly within the simplified world of the analogy but when it clashes with the real world, they dig down and reaffirm their preconceived notions.
On the other hand, I suppose they were never going to honour Cromwell's rule anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter.
His first instinct was to be a dick about it, then he sort of softly walked that back using an excuse about it being a long explanation. In the end, he gave a good answer, he just had to first pretend that it was a pain because of how smart he is and how much he understands.
There’s a lot of levels to SOC. Which do you think is “because it is?”
If you’re asking why spin values are restricted, it’s in the spin-statistics theorem [1]. If you’re asking why spin causes charge, that’s SOC. There are lifetimes of understanding contained within those layers.
You don't need spontaneous proton decay for the answer to work, just positron emission: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission
The question "why these values of constants instead of others?" sort of presupposes that other values are possible. If you instead believe that the values are fixed, then your answer is just "because that's the only value that's possible."
Gemini advanced says it’s the latter, because of color confinement. But I’d defer to a human expert
We explain this by saying the quarks have a color charge and it must always be neutral. A single quark would be lets say red, but that's for some reason not possible. If we try to rip the quark out, it takes so much energy that this energy can be used to create another quark that results in a color neutral particle (red, antired)=meson, (red,green,blue)=baryon.
NB: this is a bit simplistic and other comments explain this quite in detail NB2: this color charge is just a name, its not an actual color
Doesn't each particle species have it's own separate quantum field? How does one convert into another?
Electromagnetic field can convert into quantum electron field by spawning electron-positron pair from a single photon. But all those exchanges are just weird. It's really shocking that people managed to figure out the math that rules over this.
Yes, it's weird. Quarks and electrons are just points, they have no interior, so they can't absorb other thing. I'm not sure about the official explanation, but IIRC they old quark and the electron just disapears, and a new quark appear instead???
Actually, it's more complicated, because there appears also a new neutrino, it's something like: quark up + electron --> quark down + neutrino. But neutrinos are very difficult to see, so let's ignore it.
Actually, it's more complicated, because there is an intermediate W+ or W- particle. The W particles live for a very short time, so you can ignore it unless you work in a particle ascelerator, but to get the correct results you must use the W+ or W- particle in the middel of the transformation. The correct equation are
quark up + electron --> quark up + neutrino + W- --> quark down + neutrino
quark up + electron --> quark down + electron + W+ --> quark down + neutrino
Actually, it's more complicated, because sometimes you get a strange quark instead of a down quark. Ignoring the W+ or W- particles
quark up + electron --> quark strange + neutrino
(And perhaps there are a few more "actualies", but these are the most important weird cases.)
> How exactly does that happen?
Magic? Nobody knows, we only can make experiments and guess the equations. There is people that enjoy discusing the interpretation, but I think it's better to ignore it and enjoy the agreement of equations and experiments.
> Doesn't each particle species have it's own separate quantum field?
Yes
> How does one convert into another?
Magic? Sorry, not good answer.
> Electromagnetic field can convert into quantum electron field by spawning electron-positron pair from a single photon. But all those exchanges are just weird. It's really shocking that people managed to figure out the math that rules over this.
A lot of the rules can be understood using magic balls. You can learn the rules to combine particles and draw Feynman diagrams as if they were magic balls. It took a long time to discover them, including two or three Nobel prices. It was very difficult, but somehow it was possible to discover one rule at a time, and add another rule a few years later, that made the whole procces slightly easier.
The equations are more difficult. I only learned a small part of them (and I had forgoten them). Also, they were discovered in small steps, sometimes as simplification or generalizations of previous equations, and had a few Nobels in the list of discoverers. Also, most particles have the same equations, for example all the quarks have the same equations so you just copy it 6 times, but photons have a different equations. And you have one big equation that combines all of them in a very long formula, but each part is simple.
That's an illusion; there is only one electron.
Also, photons are not leptons -- wrong spin for that. Which in turn can raise yet another axis for our funhouse of mirrors: fermions versus bosons.
If two theories are working very well with no experiment available to indicate right vs. wrong for them, Occam's Razor would be all we would have to make a choice. That however does not really make one of them truer than the other.
I need to read the article, but yeah protons might not be stable, we just need to wait a long time to find out.
I know I probably sound like a complete goon, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
(I just watched the simpson video. haha, I thought I was being original)
This is similar to how Ben Franklin, having no knowledge of elementary particles, defined the positive and negative polarity of electricity, so we have "electron holes" flowing from the positive end of a battery to the negative end in "conventional current." [2]
Edit to add: the electron's non-even charge numbers comes into light when you see that the charge is 1.602176634×10−19 Coulombs, where 1C/second= 1 ampere. If we were trying to come up with the definition of an ampere with nice base 10 numbers of electrons this would be much different.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment
[2] https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Electrical_Engineerin...
Maybe they might have non integer charge.
There's always the layman vs scientists definition of true. Like I think most people would say we know gravity exists, but in actuality we don't really know what gravity is, but we can measure how objects behave and make useful predictions about our world and universe because of that, with it lining up with other stuff we think we know.
Sorta similarly there's the scientific definition of something like dark matter/dark energy where there useful for modeling stuff but unlike what the general public thinks nobody has actually been able to point to a physical object that is dark matter to my knowledge, it's dark because it's unseen, not because it's like chunks of black stuff we can't see.
Please set my transparency as high as you can. I totally deserve it. Let me fade into oblivion.
If you're interested in these issues, you might enjoy Chalmers' What is this Thing Called Science?, an introduction to the philosophy of science that addresses issues like these. Or a primary source like Feyerabend's Against Method, quite a fun read, though maybe not one that many philosophers of science today would give their full-throated endorsement of.
> The fractional quantum Hall effect is more complicated and still considered an open research problem. [2] Its existence relies fundamentally on electron–electron interactions. In 1988, it was proposed that there was quantum Hall effect without Landau levels. [3] This quantum Hall effect is referred to as the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect. There is also a new concept of the quantum spin Hall effect which is an analogue of the quantum Hall effect, where spin currents flow instead of charge currents. [4]
Fractional quantum Hall effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_quantum_Hall_effect :
> The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2-dimensional (2D) electrons shows precisely quantized plateaus at fractional values of e^{2}/h, where e is the electron charge and h is the Planck constant. It is a property of a collective state in which electrons bind magnetic flux lines to make new quasiparticles, and excitations have a fractional elementary charge and possibly also fractional statistics
westurner.github .io/hnlog/#story-38139569 ctrl-f "quantum Hall", "hall effect" :
- "Electrical switching of the edge current chirality in quantum Hall insulators" (2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-023-01694-y ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139569 )
But that's not elementary charge.
"Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’" (2024) https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-co... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374020 :
> Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person).
> my question is... why? why must protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge? if the proton is this insanely complex thing, by what rule does it end up equaling exactly the opposite charge of an electron? why not a charge of +1.8e, or +3e, or 0.1666e, etc? Certainly it is convenient that a proton and electron complement each other, but what makes that the case?
"Fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect in multilayer graphene" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-07010-7
Quantum Mechanics is a set of mathematical tricks, shortcuts for numerical computation, that is all. People have become so enamored with the results of those computations that they've blithely ignored the limited scope of these shortcuts. You've found a nailgun, it's better than a hammer. That doesn't mean everything is a nail now.
[1] Essentially, "particles" like photons are a short-hand terminology and a matching set of mathematical shortcuts for the behaviour of waves in a potential well (or any cavity). It doesn't make any sense outside of that scenario, such as light traversing empty space. All of that behaviour is perfectly predictable with ordinary wave mechanics. No quantum woodoo is required.
- The screen accumulates dots corresponding to photons.
- Any measurement that would let you determine which slit a photon went through destroys the wavelike interference pattern at the screen.
A counter example, Derek from Veritasium, he did a phd in physics education and it shows. Some of his videos are complex in content, but dumbed down so most people can understand.
I enjoy PBS space time and listening to Matt O’Dowd, but I understand at the most 20-40% of what is covered on the videos. It is frustrating because I like the topics being discussed.
But I think you touch on the part that I think is the reason why. Because PBS tries to dumb things down, but instead of doing it like Derek does, which adds clarity, PBS does it by "mystifying" it. Probably tickles someone's itch, but I find it annoying.
Take the video posted, for example. It starts out immediately with thumbnail "Life = Multiverse?". If it really was for the niche audience, that title is remarkably dumb, although understandable for the same reasons clickbait titles work. Perhaps PBS meant to present the question whether one leads to or suggests the other? "Life ⇝ Multiverse?" would better express that. Though, the thought process of how multiverse and the anthropic principle go together is: "Multiverse ⇝ Life?".
The video starts out by expressing three statements, related to the Anthropic Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle). Had they instead worded those statements as to be correct, it would be a very nice way of introducing the topic.
This is how it is presented:
"Life exists in our universe" ⇝ "Our universe is capable of producing and sustaining life". Which is fine. We understand what producing and sustaining life is, because it is really just the first statement with some added anthropomorphism.
The next one, which is the whole point of the "hook" for the video, and is probably intended to be a little bit cheeky, except that he keeps a straight face, so, unless you know enough, it'll probably just misinform you.
"Okay. Let's try one final uncontroversial statement. Therefore, there are countless universes".
Well, no. Multiverse theory is one way to explain the unlikeliness of the physical constants working out the way they "conveniently" do in our universe. But this logical inference is not an "uncontroversial statement". It doesn't qualify, yet it is dumbed down to suggest it does. I'm sure that the following "Hm", and look to the side, is meant to express this. What do I know. But I'm not particularly amused or impressed.
So, so far, we've seen the thumbnail, and the first three sentences before the intro video rolls. And, it's been 1. Inaccurate information in thumbnail, 2. incorrect logical inference 3. false conclusion.
I can probably continue the video, but this is why I dislike PBS so much. It doesn't really try to dumb things down. It just IMO, fails to communicate science well.
It was communicated just fine, I think you should continue watching?
So there's a question there for why the values are so exactly set, or if something forces them to be the value they are.
The anthropic principle (that if the universe weren't suitable, we wouldn't be here to know) always struck me more of reasoning that we're _not_ special.
As I understand it, 'fine tuning' is simply a fact of the universe: that the fundamental constants have values that allow for the emergence of complexity, and that even slight changes to those values would lead to homogeneous and featureless universe. I don't have the physics background to demonstrate this for myself, but I believe it.
To then reason from that fact to the existence of a multiverse or the existence of God is an extra step that one need not take, but not taking either of those steps doesn't invalidate the appearance that the fundamental constants of the universe were fine tuned for the production of complexity/life.
We could just as easily say that life on earth was “tuned” to make ”intelligent life” evolve, but we don’t have any other 4 billion year test runs of earth to see what else might have evolved. In the same way we have no data at all about the phase space of other possible universes, their constants, or how their physics would play out on cosmological timescales.
It’s not that it isn’t fun to think about. It’s just that it is unscientific.
That said, I believe the chain of logic (haven't watched the PBS video yet) is simply that were these fine-tuned constants to take any other value, there wouldn't be intelligent life to observe them. If the values were to be anything outside a narrow range, they would remain unobservable by entities within that hypothetical universe, and because we are making an observation we are implicitly sampling from the distribution of observable values. It's a Bayesian metaphysical argument?
That sounds like it presumes a multiverse, but I don't think you need an infinite number of universes or a god for that to be true... that said, it does purport to explain how fine-tuning doesn't violate certain (metaphysical?) principles of science that call for "naturalness" (which a friend once told me boils down to "all unitless constants should be either 1 or 0 otherwise it's inelegant" or something): the fine structure constant is what it is because otherwise nothing would exist to observe that it was 1/139 or 42 or whatever.
I hope this is even slightly more satisfying to read than it was to write.
I'm not assuming the constants can be changed; axiomatically, they cannot, because they're fundamental constants of the universe. I'm also not assuming that some agent was around to do the tuning. In its basic form 'fine tuning' just means that if one of the values were even slightly different we wouldn't have anything like the universe we see today, including life. The values of the constants appear as if they were tuned.
It's interesting you bring up evolution, because before that theory came about intelligent design was a reasonable assumption in trying to explain how well-adapted organisms seemed to be to their environments. It was as if someone had designed them for their roles! As it turns out the theory of evolution satisfactorily explains why organisms exhibit the appearance of design.
In a similar way the fundamental constants exhibit the appearance of having been precisely set. It's hard to imagine a scientific theory getting 'behind' the constants the way evolution was able to get 'behind' the appearance of organisms...
The point is, there might be a mismatch between our model and the underlying reality. There could be an unknown deeper structure to reality which explained why those values appear to us as “fine tuned”.
Nothing says that they couldn't be changed, but then there's the question of _why_ they can't be changed. What forced them to be the values they are? Some of them appear to be free, so are they?
I will add that, from a classical theological point of view, watchmaker type arguments are considered quite weak [0].
[0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/03/thomism-versus-desi...
I think it's the other way around, it's because we are complex reasoning forms of life that we must observe fine tuning of physical constants, necessary for the emergence of complexity.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_Bias
I also came up with my own variation of the anthropic principle:
- 1. Extend the anthropic principle beyond physical connstant. Include factors such as the goldilock zone from planetology, the symbiogenetic origin of eukaryotic cells, the presence of the moon, etc ...
- 2. Rethink the "anthropic situation" as a collection of coincidences. It doesn't directly "select for" observers, but for the right coincidences that allow them to exists.
Two paths open for us from here:
- 3.1. Either God (or whatever phenomenon can explain the presence of the right coincidences) exists and we were dealt with the right set of coincidences.
- 3.2. Or alternatively, this collection of coincidences was built up by a random sampling process. If this is the case, then we should expect this collection to contain *superfluous* coincidences that have no impact on the existence of observers. Imagine you lost the key to your house and someone cuts a key at random from a bit of metal, which luckily turns out to unlock your door. This key has more chances to feature superfluous, redundant notches, than to be an exact copy of the original key.
----
This brings a counterpoint to the cognitive perspective on pattern recognition and could be used to challenge or refine our understanding of why we perceive certain phenomena as 'coincidences' (for instance why the Moon/Sun ratios are the same for both their diameters and distances to the Earth, which allows us to observe quasi-perfect eclipses). This superfluous anthropic principle, in this case, suggests that these perceived coincidences might have an actual basis in the physical properties and probabilistic events of the universe. In other words, it is because God doesn't exist that we can see 'meaningful' coincidences "hinting" at its existence (from the perspective of magical thought).
No, that's incorrect. The specific measurement -the most accurate scientific prediction humans have ever made, the anomalous magnetic moment- is only to 1 in 10 trillion. The magnetic moment (think moment of inertia) is the ratio of force from the magnetic field to the mass of the electron. You put an electron into a magnetic field, and it'll turn to face the field at a certain speed. If you stick the electron in a vacuum, it overshoots (because of rotational momentum) and ends up wobbling back and forth at a specific frequency. That's how MRIs work; they make a big magnetic field (stronger on one end) and then measure how many electrons are wobbling in different areas, since the electrons in high-strength fields wobble faster.
Specifically, you expect the wobble to get ~2.8025 GHz (similar to a microwave oven) faster for every 1000 gauss (please, no jokes about teslas). It's very convenient to measure a difference in frequency, since you can just measure the drift over time. Because that frequency is relatively high it takes about 30 minutes for the frequency to drift off by a half-cycle and totally cancel out your reference.
And it's super easy to get a reference frequency, too. It's just the charge of an electron divided by 2x the mass of an electron. Did you do this experiment in physics class? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcn2VgBNJjg
Then you measured the charge/mass ratio of an electron. A clock that's accurate to 1 in 10 trillion is also not a big deal, although unless you have an oscilloscope in your house its probably more accurate than any clock you own. Still, you can buy a better Phase Locked Loop for a couple bucks.
If you just wanted to measure the difference, you don't need that much precision, though. The correction from quantum mechanics is pretty large, relatively speaking: ~0.16%. Even the next several digits are super easy, and it's only those last ones that you really need to bust out the liquid helium.
Lawrence and Livingston made the first cyclotron out of literal junk: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/4-inch-c...
And it really doesn't take much more than junk to get to that 0.16% accuracy that lets you see that a classical prediction of the electron is just VERY wrong. But if you listen to those wizards with the bongos, suddenly they're really, really right about what that difference is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex_function
I totally get it, and you aren't wrong, but this is literally the thing it applies to the least. The core thing here is that the obvious assumption about how the universe would work is very (>.1%) wrong, and the purely theoretical quantum math is incredibly, absurdly, amazingly correct.
It's not about measuring some amazingly small thing and having it be amazingly correct. It's about us seeing an incredibly large error in how the universe seems to behave, which QED explained perfectly. It's like the ultraviolet catastrophe or einstein's cross except its billions of times more correct.
If you squish an electron and proton really hard, you'll get a neutron [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_degeneracy_pressure
Strong-force-wise, they are very hard to tell apart.
Weak-force-wise, you have the obvious changes in allowed interactions, but it's all stuff that's plain once you understand the theory of the weak force. No surprises.
Electromagnetism is actually the interesting one: just how neutral is this neutral garbage can? There are some interesting measurements to be made here. ILL in particular has done a lot with neutrons.
And the there's gravity. Gravity, you ask? Really? Yeah! If neutrons are really neutral, they don't interact electromagnetically, it's hard to get the strong force to come out and play, and the weak force only really does its thing here on the predictable* timescales of neutron decay... so all that's left is gravity. And thus, neutrons get used (or, I guess, more commonly just proposed...) as probes for gravitational effects! Fun, huh?
(* Mostly. See neutron lifetime controversy....)
Power in an electric circuit is Watts, which is current in Amperes times voltage. Amperes are one Coulomb or 6.241509x10^18 electric charges per second flowing through a conductor. So a fixed amount of power (Watts) moves a known amount of charges. If we were sometimes moving protons instead of electrons, maybe we’d notice three orders of magnitude difference in quantity of charges in different experiments?
This also is why electric power flows along a wire at the speed of light, while electrons can only travel along a wire at the speed of a snail, or about 1 mm per second
One doesn't follow from the other. We can easily transport power by making things like a chain or a fluid move back and forth, without any net travel. In a setup with a loudspeaker and a microphone as just one example the air transfers energy from one to the other without any net movement. In those cases it's clearly the movement itself which transfers the energy. Therefore energy transport by AC is no proof for the need of an electric field for energy transport.
That's not say to there is no electric field, or to deny its role in power transfer. There certainly is an electric field. But that field is intimately tied to the electrons in the conductor, and power transfer is intimately tied to movement of those electrons and the way electrons repel each other stronger when they get closer together (or other charge carriers, but in typical conductors that means electrons). You can't have one without the other.
Still though, you asked how we know electricity uses electrons rather than protons and I'm sticking with "they're 2000x different in mass, there would be some measurable difference between them" even in an AC circuit. Oscillating a more massive conveyor belt back and forth 'in-place' is harder work than oscillating a lower mass belt. "Electrically charged" means "interacts with the electric field" and if energy in the electric field is moving heavier protons back and forth, wouldn't that be distinguishable from moving lighter electrons back and forth? Slower movement of protons, more heat generated, something like that?
This is a hallmark of a chaotic system. It's not impossible but the chances of sitting exactly on such an unstable point seems very low. It seems more likely that the constants are some optimum in a basin of attraction, a stable point in some higher order dynamic system.
They're constants but are they fundamental? There are a lot (19?) of free parameters in the Standard Model. We determine them experimentally. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some deeper explanation that results in those values. We just don't know what it is yet.
I would really, really expect users of this site to know the difference.
Early theories and fleshed-out hypotheses overlap a lot. There's no sharp transition from one to the other.
What’s missing is a test that would produce evidence that would allow us to distinguish between string theory and competing theories. But that’s not nearly the same thing as saying it has “no real evidence.”
Bret Weinstein explained the distinction between a hypothesis and theory a few weeks ago on YOUR WELCOME.
The 'god of the gaps' argument, which is pushed very hard by the new atheists[0], is question-begging and therefore worthless. The assumption is that if something is going to be explained at all, it must be via scientific methods. Therefore (they say) the appeal to God should be seen as a poor hypothesis, comparable in kind to scientific hypotheses, but vastly less useful in terms of prediction.
The whole debate is about whether it's rational to think that the entirety of an explanation for something is scientific. Therefore, the 'god of the gaps' argument is circular and question-begging.
The good arguments for God's existence and attributes, which the new atheists ignore[1] or grossly straw-man, involve the most basic of observations (such as 'there is change' or 'there are objects of the same type'), followed by deductions from said observations. They're rational arguments, assuming they're successful, but they're not scientific hypotheses. They do not appeal to things we can't explain, nor to complexity, nor to any alleged design (the last phrase is misleading anyway).
[0] It's in Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, I think Krauss too
[1] Dennett gives them one paragraph out of 478 pages in Breaking the Spell, and is guilty in this paragraph of a very common straw-man, which shows how little he's read. Dawkins also uses the same straw-man in God Delusion IIRC.
The fact that other arguments exist for religious belief systems (though attempting to deduce the necessity of an unchanging omni-being from the observation "there is change" sounds like it'd be a stretch that makes Anselm's Ontological Argument seem respectable) doesn't alter the frequency with which "contemporary science can't explain this stuff ergo the explanation must be divine" arguments are implicitly or explicitly made. Or indeed the tendency of longstanding religious beliefs to have to drop axioms once considered fundamental enough to execute dissenters for in the face of overwhelming evidence. None of which has anything to do with quantum physics, which no religion that I'm aware of has anything to say on the matter.
Now I have no idea which religious thinkers are pushing this absurdity, at least not today. I'm not really interested, because I know that the failure of a weak argument for a particular claim does not undermine that claim. But I do know that the new atheists bang this drum repeatedly, loudly and excitedly. It's a big part of their argument, and is very often repeated online.
Have I fairly stated their argument? Am I fair to say that the argument is circular?
> though attempting to deduce the necessity of an unchanging omni-being from the observation "there is change" sounds like it'd be a stretch that makes Anselm's Ontological Argument seem respectable
What research have you done on this? What is your understanding of the argument, and where are its weaknesses?
I haven't read The God Delusion or wherever the "god of the gaps" critique originated - what is this actually referring to? Are we just talking about like, pagan polytheistic explanations of natural phenomena? What serious Christian or Buddhist thinkers using religion to explain things like weather or medicine are being referred to here?
>A shift in the position of the faithful from "this an accurate account of how the world was created direct from the creator" to "well actually that stuff was all metaphorical but the Big Bang must have been God's moment because you can't explain anything that happened before then" is not a trend in favour of the explanatory power of religion.
As early as St. Augustine, writing around ~400, and one of the most influential Christian thinkers, we have discussion of the account of creation in Genesis being metaphorical. Long, long before the theory of the Big Bang.
I'll consider responding to the video if you give me a reasonable timeslice, but I'm not going to watch the whole hour.
A rare point of agreement between Nietzsche and the evangelist Henry Drummond was that the Christian apologetic approach of "ah, but that hasn't been explained yet, so it must be God's will" to all the discoveries of the Enlightenment wasn't a very impressive one. Not least because of the tendency of gaps to cease to be gaps.
Ultimately "the more we learn, they more we learn we don't know", to quote the OP is a route to agnosticism not a belief in a particular deity, and it's particularly hard to see an omipotent, benevolent God who created man in his own image in the incomprehensibility of quantum indeterminacy to the average layman (although I'll give credit to the creativity of those suggesting that three quarks must be proof of the Trinity)
> What serious Christian or Buddhist thinkers using religion to explain things like weather or medicine are being referred to here?
It'd be easier to ask what serious theologian said "nope, this stuff about the weather being controlled by divine fiat and pestilence being a punishment for the Fall is just stories and actually you might be able to alter them - perhaps even in your favour - as soon as you stop praying and start doing." well in advance of the accompanying science? Augustine, since you're apparently a fan, was pretty confident that the problem of pestilence was the product of a literally occurring Fall involving two actual First People, which doesn't square very well with evolutionary biology.
Monotheism hasn't quite had the problem of people landing on the moon god, but it's fair to say that what many mainstream monotheists believe today has changed considerably in scope from what mainstream monotheism purported to explain for most of its existence.
> As early as St. Augustine, writing around ~400, and one of the most influential Christian thinkers, we have discussion of the account of creation in Genesis being metaphorical
Sure, Augustine made four different attempts to explain Genesis because even in his time the six day account - still an article of faith for many other Christians even today - didn't make much sense. None of them involved evolution from apes, and he still ended up with Adam and Eve being literal people who caused suffering for everyone [and everything] else via Original Sin.
My understanding is that the current hypothesis says we are, in fact, all descended from one couple. I could be wrong about that though.
In any case, there's no contradiction between Original Sin, and germs and immunity and the like, as explanations for disease. See my previous comment.
That aside, with respect to saying an intelligent designer designed the universe ("God did it"):
>explains nothing
Well, it explains why the universe is fine-tuned, if you buy the argument.
>predicts nothing
Yep, just like any other answer to the question, since it's a metaphysical question rather than a scientific one.
>satisfies no curiosity
It offers an explanation.
>closes the book on any further questions
No more than any other answer does.
I'm not saying it's an argument for God, I'm saying more that it's as logically poor and useless as 'God' as an answer to the question. "Why are my parents white?" "if they weren't, you wouldn't be asking why they are white". "Why am I typing with my fingers?" "if you typed with your toes you wouldn't be asking why you type with your fingers". It's not an answer, it's a wordplay loopback which takes up the place of an answer and blocks anything else from going there.
> "Well, it explains why the universe is fine-tuned, if you buy the argument."
No, it observes that the universe is fine tuned but doesn't explain anything. How the parameters could possibly vary (how could the 'charge on an electron' concievably be tuned across the entire Universe, by any means, where is the tuning knob?), how the tuning actually happened - what process, where the multiverse universes could physically or temporally be, how they could arise, why they arise with different parameters, nothing. Worse, it suggests knowledge that the parameters can and do vary, knowledge of a multiverse or a tuning process applying to one universe, when that knowledge doesn't exist. It reassures the existence of a larger more powerful unknowable thing behind the scenes which makes this universe perfect for humans (cough Godlike cough).
> "Yep, just like any other answer to the question, since it's a metaphysical question rather than a scientific one."
"We don't know" predicts nothing, but doesn't pretend to be an answer, doesn't pretend to be more than it is.
> "It offers an explanation."
It placates (or frustrates) with a non-explanation. It's feel-good sugar when you wanted nutrition.
> "closes the book on any further questions / No more than any other answer does."
More than "We don't know" does.
No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation.
>Yep, just like any other answer to the question, since it's a metaphysical question rather than a scientific one.
Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit.
>It offers an explanation.
No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation.
>No more than any other answer does.
No, not like other answers. Science never closes the book on further questions.
it’s not entirely trivial. if someone says “god did it” because we find ourselves on earth not mars the anthropic principle is a better explanation.
A good read is https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2018/02/08/why-is-...
Which law of the universe guarantees the satisfaction of your curiosity again ?
+ "Just for us" ^^
e.g. Earth is the only place where life could have formed. We have yet to set foot on even 1 another planet but we are pretty sure we are alone in the entire damn Universe.
If anything it's an argument against Intelligent Design. E.g. life is the statistical result of a vast universe (or multiverse) of permutations - some of which are not conducive to life, and some of which are. And when life looks out and says "wow it's uncanny how perfect this place is, there must be a divine hand at work" - it's only observational bias that makes it appear that way. Because life could only exist to make such observations in regions of the universe which are suitable for life.
But on the other hand it also prevents one from saying "we exist, therefore intelligent life must be commonplace".
We absolutely are not sure of that in any way, shape or form. Quite the opposite, given our knowledge of the universe and conditions necessary for life forming, it's highly unlikely we're alone. There's a reason that we call a paradox the fact that we haven't found any extraterrestrial life yet: the Fermi Paradox.
Anyway, the anthropic principle says nothing about that.
Suppose you and I were living in a totalitarian state. The state decides that you and I are to be put to death. They drag us into a field, and a shooting squad of several marksmen surrounds us. They all fire - but miraculously, every single one of them misses us.
I then turn to you and say, "Wow, the odds that all of those bullets missed us by sheer chance are so incredibly low. Clearly, it wasn't by chance - they must have coordinated to ensure they missed us, intentionally."
You then turn to me and say, "No, that's silly. It's simply that if any of the bullets had hit us, we wouldn't be around to talk about it."
Your line of reasoning here doesn't seem to be very compelling. Why?
How about the universe kept starting and collapsing/crashing in an infinite loop until by chance the electron and the proton had the exact charge and the universe as it is now could go beyong the initial stage and could continue?
( Ok this feels like a trial an error of somebody playing universe ).
By an amazing coincidence, this particular "frameset" is logically consistent and pretty boring, so you have no intergalactic empires, no magic, and no job.
We can say most positive integers are greater than 5. Or most real numbers are irrational. Half of all integers are even — even though there's just as many of both!
My point is that their use of literary devices, as you put it, are often misleading if not flat out wrong. The listener needs to he able identify them as such, and I don't think that's a good way to communicate science.
It doesn't mean that PBS is bad. Note that I have made no such statement. I'm just saying that I dislike it, and tried to be constructive as to why. If this offended you, like your initial remark might suggest, perhaps you are reading too much into it.
The point is their use of the literary device here was not misleading nor 'flat wrong'. It is serving as a jumping off point from the video title 'Does Life Need a Multiverse to Exist?'. You may argue that such a question is ill posed, but then state your argument properly.
Read: they are NOT talking about the anthropic principle here. You are probably confused because you are trying to shoehorn this into discussion when the video is not even talking about this yet. Yes the anthropic principle is cogent to the video but not until later.
The difference in opinion is that I don't consider literary devices to validate incorrect or misleading statements. Which is why I dislike PBS. You do, and that's fine. To each their own.
down qwark is -1/3 e ; up quark is +2/3 e.
they sum up to +1 e.
neutrons are the opposite made of 3 quarks. two down quarks one up quark. and sum to 0e
the unitary quantity is a conveinience.
1 e = 1.602176634×10−19 coulombs,
But why are they in units of 1/3(e).
Why are down quarks not -0.398390847895...(e) and up quarks not +0.6234098129034809234...(e). Why do they add up so damn neatly?
Mathematically it works out that way because the standard model is build up from symmetry groups. The hand wavy explanation is that the symmetries observed in nature wouldn't be reproduced if the charges differed by random irrational numbers.
The same is also generally true of other conserved quantities in the SM. Noether's theorem unifies symmetries and conservation laws as the same thing.
As far as a more fundamental explanation as to WHY the universe is this way, ask your god i guess.
If you keep asking why eventually you'll reach a ratio between two values: constants and you can't really go further deeper than that. Even if the values we have now end up not being the most fundamental, eventually you'll run into the fundamental ones and still have the same question unanswered.
I’m sure a universe could work with those constants varied but that’s the one we have in our universe.
There could be hypothetical universes with protons being half of electron and atoms would have twice the protons.
However the fundamental constants are just that. A number that allows us to reason about how the universe works.
As to why the number is that, gotta ask your God why they chose that specific value.
EDIT: after reading the great Wikipedia article above, and a connected one [1], I think I can restate: the only place we can look for these particles is in atoms, so it shouldn’t surprise us that they come in convenient forms to support atom formation.
I mentioned this recently, in the context of the laziness in language, leading to the miseducation of those who don't know better, and was heavily downvoted and ridiculed
keep it up, hn, you'll see idiocracy soon enough and then no one will trigger you
Ah right, so basically its just a convenience notation? We could as well say that proton has 3 and electron is -3 charge?
Absolutely! In fact that would have been much more convenient, since the "quantum of charge" appears to be 1/3 of the charge of the proton. All units of charge we've ever observed seem to be integer multiples of 1/3e.
OP's article has a full paragraph dedicated saying that "The proton is much more than three quarks"
Or course, I don't mean to hand-wave away the potential implications of this. Maybe there would be no atomic nuclei in such a universe, for all I know. But if not, why not?
Not that it wouldn't necessarily be possible, but it would require everything we know about physics to be remodeled because the consequences are vast, fundamental even. So yes, with an entirely different model of the universe that would likely be possible.
Personally, I find the taste of hot chocolate just as nice regardless of the exact mix of quarks composing its constituent elements.
You can also read my other comment on this topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37014923
Pivoting to the fine-tuning argument (not the anthropic principle):
The argument doesn't purport to answer precisely the questions you ask here, but it's still an explanation. To use the card example I used elsewhere, if I kept pulling the ace of spades out of a deck of cards and showing it to you, the answer to the question of why I'm always pulling the ace of spades that I've arranged these events intentionally still leaves the door open for other questions. How do I know where the ace of spades is? Is this a standard card deck, or are there multiple aces of spades in my set of cards? The answer that I'm arranging the events intentionally explains why an otherwise low-probability event is occurring, but it doesn't answer these questions - but that's ok, an explanation doesn't have to answer all questions.
Okay, I'll grant you that if someone only believes in a God creating conditions for life then the Anthropic principle sort of suggests a non-God possibility, along the lines that Evolution with natural selection presented a way for increasing complexity and intelligence to arise from random mutations without an intelligent designer.
Still, we humans exist in a visibly large and competitive 'dog eat dog' ecosystem, so observing that the ecosystem affects the life within it is a certain kind of idea which fits in with a lot of other observations. Your comment line which I quoted above assumes a low-probability event based on no other observations, when there's no reason to assume that, no sign of an 'evolution of Universes competing in a wider ecosystem of Universes'; you've declared this universe to be 'low probability' based on nothing and then seek to explain something about how we find ourselves in a low-probability universe. For all we know, this could be the only possible Universe configuration, the only solution to some Universe-equation, or an overwhelmingly likely one if all possible Universes are capable of supporting life [and the ideas of Universes which couldn't support life are, in some way, not possible].
I think perception cannot exist without a robust evolutionary history to build upon, which is why you perceive something sensible.
Back to the chaotic universe, the "perceptor" switches between the states, every state is a complete picture. Yes it does see more chaotic states, but they don't leak into each other, including through expectations. There's no memory outside of a state that it could accumulate and experience continuously. Eons of state changes pass between two attoseconds, but there's no way to remember.
That's what I mean by perception. In-frameset perception obviously has to be continuous to make (or not make) sense.
Perhaps 'because' if the consistency did not exist then the universe would fail to exist.
There was the Big Bang, but we do not know what caused the Big Bang. But the particular Big Bang that started our particular universe may not have been the only one to occur. There could have been multiple previous Big Bangs where the 'properties' of each of those created universes may not have had the same consistency as we experience, and the inconsistency(s) could have resulted in a 'collapse' or 'destruction' of those universes.
Whereas it was just a coincidence that our Big Bang got things 'right' for the universe to continue to develop.
We could simply be experiencing survivorship bias in/with our universe.
As someone who dabbles in philosophy, and to use its language, our existence is contingent (we, and our universe, do not have to exist):
I don't know of any plausible naturalist explanation besides Many-Worlds. And that supposes for the sake of discussion that Many-Worlds is in fact naturalist.
The void in its infinite time and endless space (the same as neither existing) became bored with itself, and in its attempt to destroy itself, split and created the universe we have now. Full of endless wonders and anomalies and beauty and travesty. All for the amusement of itself as one that remembers the abyssal void.
I think the unsatisfactory feeling I get from these answers is that nobody ever tries to model worlds with different physics or different physical parameters and try to make them work.
It's one thing to know that everything will break down if parameters of this universe change slightly, but I don't think anyone ever actually seriously tried to make alternatives work, and simply assumed that the only model we know that works is the only possibility.
Of course, I understand it's hard, and we might not have the compute to properly run the simulations to see how things actually work out (without quantum computers, apparently the problem is exponentially hard on classical computers). But philosophically it feels lazy and unimaginative.
Alternative models are being explored all the time. There is incentive to do so, because coming up with better explanations is likely to win Nobel prizes. What is now called the standard model, however, so far explains the existing observations the best, despite being more complex and having a higher amount of arbitrariness than most physicists would like.
Sadly (?) the word "nothing" seems to have become overloaded, so now—depending on who you talk to—you can have the word pointing to different concepts. See "seven types/levels of nothing":
* https://rlkuhn.com/wp-content/uploads/Closer-to-Truth-Essays...
* https://closertotruth.com/news/levels-of-nothing-by-robert-l...
Could it happen while this universe is here?
What if that supermass is another(the next?) big bang forming; energy just slides around some universe space banging off here and there, forever?
It's more like: "Because we have arrived at a model that describes well most other aspect of those particles and their behavior, and has verified predictive power, and given the constrains and calculations based on that model, that's what its charge would be".
At a certain point, the reason we like some particular wacky physical model is always going to be "it has the best combination of explanatory power and simplicity"
It’s like asking why the left engine of an aircraft happens to emit the same amount of thrust as the right engine; if that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be a plane to talk about in the first place, just an art piece or a flaming crash.
Which epistemic foundation in which your "why" question is answered do you consider as acceptable for you?
So by a pretty simple inferrence you could conclude the proton has a positive in it, hence the charge (it of course isn't literally like this for other reasons though).
And since we also observe antiprotons, the opposite can clearly apply.
Well, you'd need to ask a question that can be answered with science rather than philosophy, generally.
Take quantum mechanics. This came out of observations that particles exhibited wave-like behaviour. Mathematics predicts certain things when you start to apply the wave equation. These are then experimentally verified and the model is shown to be pretty good, although it has some deficiencies like not fully linking up with relativity. There are some doubts in some areas of what it predicts as well from what I understand from talking to researchers.
As the article says the original model was that protons were fundamental particles: nothing smaller. This model held up for quite some time but then observational data demonstrated it was insufficient. Same with the three quark model. Knowing the various deficiencies we might go so far as to say "the model that a proton is a +1 charge is good enough" and use that because that works for many situations and that's as much as we need. Although of course, there are always scientists looking to complete the picture.
Science is the incremental acquisition of knowledge through observation and experimentation - and there's an awful lot we haven't figured out.
i.e. it's the only combination that works. A proton is a bunch of other particles that, when combined together, balance out an electron. The 'why' is 'because that's a stable configuration' in the same way that water at 25c is liquid not gas because the 'rules' of the local environment dictate that.
I mean, why do those particles exist at all? That's really what you're asking. Why do electrons exist, why do protons 'form' from subatomic particles to balance them out? Existential kinda question.
Quantum physics has always bothered me, personally, since I find it difficult to understand reasons. Not philosophical reasons, I am fine with axioms and foundations to models, but rather intuitive reasons why it works a certain way. I know it is an extremely strong theory which makes unexpected, later confirmed, predictions, but there is a frustration that the only explanation to things is "math".
One of the ways you can calculate the probability of nuclear decay for example is to assume that the particle you expect to see is literally existent and trapped inside a potential well defined by the atomic nucleus and then calculate the probability it tunnels out of that to free space.
The thing is "why" does get pretty anthropic: protons match electrons because we observe them to, and then on top of that we observe nuclear decay causing the conversion of a proton to a neutron + a positron (within the limits of our instruments) - so our model predicts that these are in fact the same value, and we keep measuring to check that they converge in that direction (it would be a big deal, for example, if we discovered this wasn't the case - every physicist would love to find out that proton charge and electron charge are actually slightly different).
No, and the standard intuition that there are discrete things made out of smaller parts breaks down when you look closely enough. The proton is a bound state of the quark and gluon fields, but it only "contains" individual quarks and gluons in a loose heuristic sense, and positrons are a different thing entirely.
> Does it mean that their wave functions interact in some specific way?
Yes, or more precisely it means that the quark fields interact with the electron field (free electrons and positrons are different states of the same underlying bispinor field) and the W boson field in some specific way.
> Quantum physics has always bothered me, personally, since I find it difficult to understand reasons.
Ultimately, the sort of mechanistic explanations you're looking for do not exist: the universe runs on differential equations and linear algebra, not billiard balls and clockwork.
A photon turns into a (virtual) electron-positron pair. Does it mean that the photon consists of these particles?
You are not only confused because they are using a literary device, you are _primarily_ confused because you think they are talking about the anthropic principle, when they are not.
Anyways. I am sure you have your reasons for disliking PBS. Just that the reason you've given here is incoherent, for reasons I understand (trying to make a point quickly etc). No worries.
So, I'll make it simple.
"LIFE = MULTIVERSE?", is... a very dumb statement. It can function as a clickbait, but I'm assuming that PBS wants to suggest a relationship of inference. Why start out with possibly giving someone a wrong idea/concept? Now, this isn't a big deal. I just took a peek, and the first thing I saw was rather dumb. So, that's what I'll mention.
Secondly is the sequence of statements, that are explicitly stated as "uncontroversial" in the inference between them.
They are:
"Life exists in our universe" ⇝ "Our universe is capable of producing and sustaining life" ⇝ "there are countless universes".
I'm taking these at face value. Third inference is invalid for more than one reason. Yet, it is presented as nothing but. You consider that OK. I can only think of two possible explanations for why: 1. You consider it OK to be incorrect and misleading when it is used as a literary device. 2. You do not understand why it is an invalid inference.
Either is fine by me. However, I'm not really confused. This... isn't very confusing. The only thing I've stated as a personal opinion here, is that I dislike PBS for being misleading and incorrect, as a literary device. You suggested that they weren't being misleading or incorrect, because there is a "hint hint, nudge nudge" that it might be ironic. So, my person opinion is: well, that's pretty fucking annoying. Hence my conclusion. Which is why I'll just stick to Derek and the likes who can manage to dumb things down to my level. Everyone is happy.
PS: .. and in case you might argue this; it also doesn't matter what they explain later on, if that's why you mentioned I should watch on. There is no "uncontroversial" series of arguments that will reach the logical conclusion "there are countless universes". It's just one of several ways to reason about why life, and the laws of physics, happen to allow something otherwise improbable. Which is what I'm assuming they will get to, but again, I have no intentions of watching it.
Stew on that.
> There is no "uncontroversial" series of arguments that will reach the logical conclusion "there are countless universes"
Oh but there is. That's the point of the video. The arguments are laid bare if you care.
> Third inference is invalid for more than one reason
If only you'll watch the video to understand why it might in fact be a valid inference! :)
Not only do they have no proof, most of the potential experimental confirmations are at energies so high they're effectively out of reach for the foreseeable near future.
Proponents of string theory have not been able to propose an experiment that would allow them to exclude other theories, thereby demonstrating that string theory is better. But by the exact same token, critics of string theory have not been able to conduct an experiment that contradicts string theory, thereby allowing them to exclude it. And science moves forward by excluding theories with evidence (not just complaining about them).
Discussions of string theory among physicists are deeply intertwined with concerns about who gets famous, who gets grants, who gets tenure, who gets endowed chairs, who gets on TV and sells books, etc. But these types of concerns are a constant background noise to the practice of science, going back hundreds of years. Every scientist on Earth tends a private list of the wrong people who are getting too many resources to study the wrong thing.
If the critics of string theory could prove it was wrong, they would have, but they haven't yet. That makes it provisionally correct. Not correct, necessarily--it could be wrong! But it's not wrong yet, which is better than quite a lot of scientific theories proposed across the span of history (for now...).
No, absolutely not. This is the kind of argument an amateur apologist would make for the existence of God. You need to think about what "unfalsifiable" means and why it's a pejorative term in science.
I really like listening to brian greene and sean carroll but now when I listen to them, particularly in recent videos, it feels like there is much less substance to what they're actually saying string theory has done.
But who knows! Maybe I'll learn something new and completely flip my world view again, I'm not a physicist by any stretch so have to rely on listening to experts :)
I'm talking about consistent models that don't match our physical reality, but that can potentially simulated and which can give rise to intelligent life.
This particular human brain refuses to believe that the perceptor perceives anything when selecting a chaotic state. If you'd like to hear chaos' opinion on the matter, please pound on your keyboard for a while.
(The more interesting question would be the opposite: what if it was two electrons per proton? Then you could throw around some photons and end up with a half-proton negatively-ionized molecule. What would that look like?)
In reality, "protons" do not "exist" but are semi(very) stable collections of energy that interact in an interesting enough way in a group that it is useful for us to retain the name, rather than refer to it by its constituents.
Electrons don't really glob up into things like atoms due to repulsion (no moderation by the stron/weak nuclear forces) so we don't have a really useful reason to keep going beyond the definition of the electron so we just stop trying to find additional constituent parts.
In the context of fine-tuning arguments for God, we really are just arguing that an intelligent designer designed the universe. In isolation, this doesn't necessarily commit us to some mainstream religion, and in this context, God is just the intelligent designer of the universe, nothing more (though proponents of the arguments will go on, through other arguments, to ascribe more properties to this thing).
>Goddidit is not an explanation.
I don't know why it wouldn't be. Suppose I kept pulling a card from a deck and showing it to you. Every single time, it was the ace of spades. Why is this? Well, one pretty good explanation is that I know where the ace of spades is in the deck and I'm intentionally picking that card out and showing it to you. That is, there is intelligence/intentionality that explains this event. You would probably consider this as an explanation. The fine-tuning argument's conclusion is just as much of an explanation.
>Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit.
I don't know what you mean to say here. Satandidit doesn't predict anything either.
>No, not like other answers. Science never closes the book on further questions.
This isn't a scientific question though. This is a question about why the fundamental constants of nature are what they are. This is a question beyond the domain of science. Elsewhere in this thread, someone linked a video of Feynman (an atheist) on "why" questions and how at some point they have to bottom out - and at this point, science cannot provide the answers.
Besides, this doesn't close the book on further questions. We can still ask, "what kind of existence is this intelligent designer?", "why does this intelligent designer exist?", etc. And of course, questions that are normally under the domain of science are still under the domain of science.
That said, I agree with you roughly. I think suggesting an intelligent design as a possibility is not "shutting down curiosity". A scientific mind can entertain higher forms of power and look into it.
Accepting the possibility of a creator is not equivalent to blind devotion to one of the many existing faiths.
That said, intelligent design is shutting down curiosity. It's not an explanation for anything, it's not a falsifiable theory, and posits a supreme being that we can't possibly have any hope of ever understanding, as it is incalculably more intelligent and complex, thereby eliminating the need and desire for further research. The only way to accept it is to have "faith," not through reasoning. Intelligent design is basically goddidit dressed up in scientific jargon, incompetently so.
The fact that every single proponent of it, ever, was a religious person first, and then became an intellectual promoting intelligent design, and that no scientist who wasn't a believer first was ever convinced by the intelligent design argumentation, should tell you enough. But if that's not sufficient, there have actually been court cases in the U.S. where people tried to get it into schools on the basis that it's a scientific argument. Every time they failed, with the courts ruling that it's quack science that doesn't merit consideration. For the latest example, look up Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
Repeating the same argument despite it having been refuted isn't conductive to further discussion, at a certain point you'll only get replies out of pity at best, like this one.
The same ascertainable to humans value perhaps, but if one assumes they are necessarily completely equal (there is no God, in fact) you would typically want evidence. But this is only typically, some things in science don't need proof.
Because youdidit.
That's not an explanation?
There are different kinds of explanations according to different measures, but all explanation is about identifying the causes of things. "You did it" identifies the agent, the efficient cause. I can, of course, explain how the agent (you) effected the cause, but youdidit is still an explanation, even if it isn't the kind you are interested in hearing.
With goddidit, you abruptly got to the end through an escape hatch, and you are done having done no work. There is nothing that explains god, by definition, and there is no "figuring out the rest".
But it does feel like you might have a point here. If everything is moving away from each other, things must have a center some where, and thats where this new big bang is forming?
This is not correct: every object is getting further from every other object it's not gravitationally bound to, at a rate approximately proportional to the distance between them.
"Infinity" is another one of those things that used to be murky, but simple; after Cantor we now have different infinities ℵ0, ℵ1... an un-Ockhamian proliferation of terms, and we have to worry about the spaces between them. Science ruins everything!
* https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally
" We show that the symmetries of this non-commutative space unify the standard model of particle physics with (2) chiral gravity. The algebra of the octonionic space yields spinor states which can be identified with three generations of quarks and leptons. The geometry of the space implies quantisation of electric charge, and leads to a theoretical derivation of the mysterious mass ratios of quarks and the charged leptons. Quantum gravity is quantisation not only of the gravitational field, but also of the point structure of space-time."
> the speed of light
is not
> 299,798,452 m/s
It is quite inaccurate to say this. The correct way to phrase this is that the speed of light is 1/sqrt(permeability * permittivity) of the medium through which the light is traveling.
For a perfect vacuum, these two properties of that vacuum give a result as specified above. For other specified medium, you will get a different value, which could be greater than or less than the above figure.
Little technicalities matter in such cases, as it opens up the discussion. Part of that discussion is that solar space or interstellar space or intergalactic space will have distributions of matter that can alter what the speed of light is away from the assumed perfect vacuum speed of light.
Simple assumptions such as perfect vacuum are quite likely to affect how accurate our models of the universe are. The problem for us is that we are here and not out there making actual on location measurements of the permittivity and permeability of the relevant regions. The assumptions made in our models can come back and bite us in the long term.
Now as for the models we use currently for proton and neutron structure, there are assumptions here that could well be misleading us even though our models appear to work. There are alternate models available (since at least the early 20th century) which have, as far as I know, not been investigated with any detailed effort. Now, of course, it doesn't mean that these alternatives are actually viable, but we don't really know at this time.
It's actually the speed of causality / information transfer.
No, because those constants are entirely arbitrary.
The curiosity here is that you have multiple numbers lining up, only separated by small integers.
Physicists have been searching for the Grand Unified Theory since forever, and so far, no real luck. The closest is something i'm not too familiar with called M-theory (which is a derivative(?) of string theory).
At scale of things in space (asteroids, planets, satellites, stars, galaxies) - We only need two constants (speed of light, and gravitational constant). The spacetime fabric bending explains everything we see at the scale. Things are very deterministic and have been verified with tons of experiments for decades around the globe.
At the quantum scale, gravity is an extremely weak force but it is still there. We have planks constant (h), elementary charge (e), speed of light.
You are right, that someday we may derive gravitational constant from another elementary particle constant.
I am not so sure about speed of light though.
> Stew on that.
I'm starting to get the impression that you don't really follow my arguments.
> > There is no "uncontroversial" series of arguments that will reach the logical conclusion "there are countless universes"
> Oh but there is. That's the point of the video. The arguments are laid bare if you care.
Yeah, I skimmed the video now. It's all related to the anthropic principle. Also, nothing is particularly complicated, and, it's exactly what I expected it to be. Hence my previous stated assumption "... is one way to explain the unlikeliness of the physical constants working out the way they "conveniently" do in our universe". I think I could get a a 10 year old to fully understand the fundamental concepts here, though certainly not by having them watch the video.
At 12:47 he states:
"The strong anthropic principle seems to make sense of the incredible fine tuning of our own universe. [Pause for effect] But does that fine tuning actually predict the multiverse? Well, this is a highly controversial point".
So, I suppose it's nice that you made me watch a bit more. Turns out I was right about what you convinced me I was wrong about (It's all tied to the anthropic principle, which includes details on the physical constants I referred to, and how the multiverse is a way to speculate as to why), and it also turns out PBS explicitly agrees with my objection. You know, the one about the initially stated inference being "totally uncontroversial". Telling me to watch the video to find out why, where they say the inference is controversial..... nice. But I have to ask then, did you watch it? That said, I did expect PBS to actually understand the topic. So it wasn't all that surprising that they would contradict the initial statement. After all, it was just a "literary device".
Have a great day.
PS: Regarding, "If only you'll watch the video to understand why it might in fact be a valid inference!". It's either a valid inference, or it isn't. (My point: It isn't, so it shouldn't be presented as if it is)
PPS: PBS is alright. It isn't for me, as it annoys me more often than not. I don't expect everyone to agree, nor is that my goal or desire. Heck, if PBS comes across this and thinks there are any take-aways, maybe that's all worth while. If nothing else, I do genuinely wish for you to have a nice day.
PPPS: Don't focus on the "predict" aspect. I suspect you might want to. But at some point I'd refer you to... maybe this is a good resource https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/
-----
For shits and giggles, I pasted this prompt into ChatGPT4: "Related to the anthropic principle, here are three statements, and a suggested inference between then. Can you point out any issues? They are all states as being totally uncontroversial: "Life exists in our universe" ⇝ "Our universe is capable of producing and sustaining life" ⇝ "there are countless universes"."
--- ChatGPT response start ---
""""
The three statements you've presented related to the anthropic principle and the suggested inference between them touch upon a range of complex issues in the philosophy of science, cosmology, and metaphysics. Here's a breakdown and analysis of each statement and the potential issues with the inference:
"Life exists in our universe" - This statement is indeed uncontroversial and supported by empirical evidence. We have direct evidence of life on Earth, and current scientific endeavors are exploring the possibility of life elsewhere in our universe.
"Our universe is capable of producing and sustaining life" - This follows logically from the first statement. Since life exists in our universe, it is a direct observation that our universe has the necessary conditions to produce and sustain life, at least in some regions like Earth.
"There are countless universes" (Multiverse Theory) - The leap to this statement from the previous ones introduces several controversial aspects:
- Lack of Direct Evidence: There is currently no direct empirical evidence for the existence of other universes, making this a speculative hypothesis rather than a well-established scientific theory.
- Inference from Fine-Tuning: The argument often used to support the multiverse concept is based on the fine-tuning of the constants and laws of physics that make life possible in our universe. The reasoning is that if there are countless universes, each with potentially different physical constants and laws, it wouldn't be surprising that at least one of them (ours) has the right conditions for life. However, this inference is a significant leap from the observational statements preceding it and rests on speculative physics and philosophical arguments rather than direct observation.
- Philosophical and Scientific Controversies: The multiverse hypothesis raises numerous philosophical questions about the nature of reality, the definition of a universe, and the limits of scientific knowledge. It also challenges the principle of parsimony or Occam's Razor, which suggests preferring simpler theories until more complex ones are necessitated by evidence.
Non-Sequitur: The inference from the universe being life-sustaining to the existence of countless universes is a non-sequitur, meaning it does not logically follow from the previous statements. While the first two statements are grounded in observation, the leap to a multiverse requires additional assumptions not contained within the observational evidence.
Speculative Nature: The multiverse hypothesis, while a fascinating area of theoretical physics and cosmology, remains highly speculative and beyond the current reach of empirical verification.
Philosophical Implications: The argument touches on deep philosophical issues about the nature of existence and our ability to understand the universe. It also involves the anthropic principle, which has various formulations that can lead to different conclusions about the nature of the universe and the significance of human life within it.
"""
--- ChatGPT response end ---
Nice that ChatGPT and I seem to agree. Apologies for the formatting mess.
Here is a suggestion:
"Life exists in our universe" ⇝ "Our universe is capable of producing and sustaining life" ⇝ "The fundamental laws and constants of our universe are finely tuned to allow the existence of life" (aka the anthropic principle).
And then something like... "This fine-tuning can lead us to speculate that our universe might be just one of many, each with different laws and constants, in a vast multiverse". Or something along those lines.
But it may be a valid inference. No one knows, that's the point. That's why the multiverse theory is a theory, however strenuous seeming.
Thanks for citing the scientific method at me, it's appreciated. Have a great day.
... well, if you were offended by me linking the scientific method... it's because it might bridge the gap in why you think "that's the point".
It seem to me that, after all this, you still fail to understand the argument I've presented. I've made a lot of effort, in good faith, in trying to figure out why, and address it. The argument is also remarkably simple, as is the examples given. The argument wasn't so much physics, as didactics. But we got stuck on the physics part, because we don't share the same understanding of what logical inference requires. Hence... the aforementioned suggestion.
But, it has reached the point of just being silly. One can only lead the horse to the water. Doesn't seem productive to carry on with the spoon feeding.
Reading your other comments down thread doesn't paint you in a good light. Maybe your argument about laziness in language wasn't as cogent as you thought. Maybe you aren't as good at presenting arguments as you thought.
In other words, maybe you need some humility.
but if you knew for sure you'd be able to be sure of that and also show the proof
instead what you did is present the impression that you had which is a synthesis of what you encountered and what was in you from the past.
If you study much philosophy, you'll have to admit the fact that a large number of people turn away from what is true. It's not pleasant to you, I know. nor is it pleasant for you to see the product of the system that you want to close your eyes to talking to you in an unpleasant manner.
It doesnt matter how correct people are. The more correct people are the worse they're treated. The better we get at presenting true arguments the more you will resent us and the more you have no choice but to react with violence (being unable to admit your lie), as HNers do now with trap counterarguments and gaslighting. No wonder suicide is on the rise.
The reality is that we’re all ignorant about most things, so having an attitude with someone around something you know - irrespective of how you know it - is a losing strategy and as you said leads to poor interactions
Try to give people more grace and you’ll find people are more capable than you might know
"particles" are just what we call particular kinds of excitations in quantum fields
doesn't in any way answer, or obviate, or otherwise demystify the question of
why the electric charge associated with one sort of "particle" should be exactly 3x the electric charge associated with another.
So your comment is not only gratuitously rude, it's also either (1) wrong or (2) missing some essential explanation.
On a side note: are there any models that assume that there are fields/shapes that are constanly bombarbed by neutrinos and other stuff. Thks bombardment seems to be always ignored
or any isolated quantum systen
We can test your theory: if the entire purpose of the mathematical model was to "add up neatly", and that's the reason why charge(proton) / charge(electron) is a nice round -1, then that should be true for other properties, right? What is mass(proton) / mass(electron)? It's 1836.1526734... Is that nice and neat? No, it's not. And yet physicists didn't decide to adjust their theory because that number offended them, as you suggest. Turns out you're spreading anti-science disinformation for absolutely no reason.
The purpose of the theory is to describe reality. In the case of charge, it is reality that adds up "neatly".
No idea what you’re getting at with that conspiracy theory comment, or rather I do and think you need to touch grass and stop projecting some boogey man onto people for stating an objective fact. These are predictive models not divine truth and if you think this is a conspiracy theory you either havent studied much math yourself or your are seriously brainwashed. This is not a fringe view and is a core debate within the philosophy of mathematics with no definitive answer.
Now you're talkin' tri-angular!
https://cidu.info/2022/05/06/thats-a-cute-angle/
Right angles are wrong angles! Death to th' T-square!
look in the history of the greater philosophers
you see it in the mechanism of narcissistic abuse as well
you might also read up on the girardian scapegoat. the point is people like the comfort of falsehood so it tends to propagate more easily. few who were around masters wanted the actual teaching rather than some life quality improvements and basic answers. One of the merits certain people can get by hanging out around a real teacher is that those people can pretend that they were one of the people who wanted to know in front of those who don't know any better.
There is no baggage. You were trying to sell goddidit here as an "explanation" that should merit the same consideration as actual scientific theories, and deserved to be called out on it.
Or more harshly (your preferred style it seems), you are treating your own consciousness as an omniscient God.
Alternatively you're arguing that examples of specific faiths you provide are equivalent to the broader concept of accepting the chance of a higher power. Which is also wrong.
It is exactly a problem with didacts with you. I'm sorry you are completely lost when literary devices are used.
And if you still don't see how this may be a valid inference, take it to PBS for even posing it as a possible question to investigate then. I'm sure you'd jump at the chance to tell them they actually don't understand the scientific method. Funny stuff, if it weren't so sad.
So, what's the point of this? I was explaining things for your sake. You do not seem to care for it. So, just leave it be then?
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre)
I wouldn't call it totally random, no. It's really derived from somethings real in this universe.
> So, the precise numbers are only meaningful as part of a system built on these units
That doesn't sound particularly random. And in fact we agree here.
Some of you are talking past each other. The speed of light being exactly the number c is arbitrary, because the choice to use the ephemeris second as the base unit of time (regardless of the precision we get by now using cesium atom “beats”) is arbitrary even though it’s based on something real. That’s just standardizing our arbitrary choice.
The charge of an electron is also effectively arbitrary for the same reason. We can have our units based on whatever real thing we want.
What isn’t arbitrary is that, whatever units we use and whatever number we arrive at for the charge of the electron, it true that the quark charge units are (1/3)e. Thus, as the poster pointed out there is a fundamental difference in asking why it works out that way compared to asking why the speed of light is a particular derived number.
tldr: The poster above is wrong about his claim that it’s like asking “Why is the speed of light…” because he’s comparing a number to a relationship.
There could be hypothetical universes with protons being half of electron and atoms would have twice the protons.
However the fundamental constants are just that. A number that allows us to reason about how the universe works.
As to why the number is that, gotta ask your God why they chose that specific value."
And so the post I responded too said these constants are totally RANDOM / ARBITRARY.
But they cannot be otherwise the universe wouldn't work (as far as we know).
The measurements or units we use to express these are arbitrary-- but the constants themselves are DERIVED from the system we call the universe. Without them the system wouldn't work.
Is this really so controversial?
My objection to your post is that the meter being defined based on physical reality isn’t meaningful. It isn’t the same thing as saying “the speed of light is c because c is the speed of light and we’ve derived it to be c (in our system of units).”
If we had two different types of universal-constant speed, we could measure the ratios between them. But there's only c.
Charges of elementary particles, on the other hand, we do have multiple examples. And whether we call an electron "-1" or "4895", there is an exact ratio between different particles that is an intriguingly simple number.
The ratio being such a simple number tells us something about the universe, in the way that most constants don't.
Or to put that another way, "299,798,452" is derived from both facts about the universe and arbitrary human choices. "1/3" is only derived from facts about the universe. It being such a simple number then begs for explanation, because humans didn't intervene to make it such a simple number.
And on top of that, if the speed of light or gravitational constant changed by .00001, nothing would happen. If the electron and proton didn't match perfectly, a ton of stuff would break.
As to the predictive power, the multiverse theory does have it. The fact that we can't experimentally confirm it today doesn't mean that it's not falsifiable. I agree, however, that the anthropic principle does not have a predictive power, just like fine tuning, but at least the anthropic principle doesn't imprison the mind and stunt further research by positing an unexplainable super being.
Again, just like with intelligent design, there is not a single physicist who was an atheist first, and then learned about fine tuning and became a believer. Every single proponent of fine tuning was a person of faith first (predominantly Christian but some other faiths too) before they became a physicist. Can you name a single counter example? (that might make me reconsider)
Maybe you could explain (no pun intended) why it's not an explanation? Go back to the card example I used earlier - would you agree that me intentionally arranging the events is an explanation? What exactly is it that makes this an explanation, but not an intelligence behind universal constants (I won't use the word God so as to not offend you---again, the idea that there is an intelligence behind universal constants doesn't commit us to any particular faith, doesn't commit us to the idea that the intelligence must be the ultimate cause or omnipotent or omniscient or anything like that)?
>All it does is move the goalpost for explaining beyond unreachable and trap the inquisitive mind in a box.
What box-trapping are you referring to here? If by moving the goalpost, you mean that it doesn't explain anything about why the intelligence is what it is or how it behaves---yes, indeed, it doesn't, and we're still open to asking these questions. Again, we're not committing to any particular faith here, you could even use this argument to provide credence for the simulation hypothesis (something you're probably fine with since it's not a strictly theistic idea), since we're not saying anything particular about what this intelligence is like or how it came to be. In the context of the argument, we say "God" to just mean "intelligence behind the universe".
>As to the predictive power, the multiverse theory does have it. The fact that we can't experimentally confirm it today doesn't mean that it's not falsifiable.
Oh, interesting, what are you referring to here? What could empirically falsify the multiverse theory?
>Again, just like with intelligent design, there is not a single physicist who was an atheist first, and then learned about fine tuning and became a believer. Every single proponent of fine tuning was a person of faith first (predominantly Christian but some other faiths too) before they became a physicist. Can you name a single counter example? (that might make me reconsider)
I don't see why the behavior of people who accept or reject the argument is relevant. We don't reject intelligent design because it's pushed by Christians; we reject it because it appears to be inferior in terms of explanatory power and utility for scientists. (Of course, intelligent design is still an explanation; another key point here is that there's a difference between a false or bad explanation and a not-even-explanation---off the top of my head, I can't even think of what a not-even-explanation that purports to be an explanation looks like.)
No such inquiry is allowed with fine tuning, because it's designed to terminate the scientific probing. The designer is beyond understanding by definition. You say that fine tuning proponents are still "open" to figuring out why or what this intelligent designer is, but unless you can provide an example of a reputable physicist actually working on this, it's a false claim. If there is such a poor soul out there, they are working on a sisyphus task, hoping beyond hope to understand the supreme being that made the universe.
First we were supposed to believe that the earth was flat, because that's how God made it. Then when that was disproven, we were supposed to believe that it was round, but that it was made 6000 years ago, in 6 days. Then when that was disproven, we were supposed to believe that maybe it was older but it was the center of the universe. Then when that was disproven we were supposed to believe that maybe it revolved around the sun, but that God made us in his image. Then when that was disproven we are supposed to believe that evolution did happen, but only because God willed it by fine tuning the universe. With each new claim, religion moves the goal post further and further beyond the reach of contemporary science, but they are all designed to trap the mind within religious bounds, where once you get to God you are not allowed to ask any more questions. Look up Hegelian dialectics for a fascinating example of this. Fine tuning is but the latest example.
Here is one physicist explaining how to falsify one version of the multiverse theory: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why-the...
The reason why the behavior of people accepting the argument is important is because with an unfalsiable claim like fine tuning, if you're not patient enough to wait hundreds of years for physics to figure it out, one of the few things you're left with is appeal to authority. If you can trace the claim back to a bunch of religious quacks who otherwise never made meaningful contributions to science, you may decide that it's not worth your time. (I am obviously not talking about people who found evidence of fine tuning, but about people who then use that as evidence of a supposed intelligence).
Where in the argument is the designer defined this way?
The argument is, roughly speaking:
(1) The fine-tuning of universal constants is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. (2) It is not due to physical necessity or chance. (3) Therefore, it is due to design.
>You say that fine tuning proponents are still "open" to figuring out why or what this intelligent designer is, but unless you can provide an example of a reputable physicist actually working on this, it's a false claim.
I said that the fine-tuning argument does not commit you to not asking further questions. Fine-tuning proponents generally aren't just using the fine-tuning argument in isolation but rather to support a particular set of views. But if there's something problematic here, it would seem to be not the fine-tuning argument but other arguments or views these people have.
Besides, the questions of "where you came from" and "what caused you to form the intent" are in the scope of theology, and there is a diversity of views in the exact answers to these questions and arguments for/against them. Of course, this isn't a science, but that's because the designer explanation for fine-tuning is not a scientific explanation, just as the anthropic principle explanation for fine-tuning is not a scientific explanation. You can reject these explanations as bad ones, that's fine, but not being scientific just makes them not-scientific explanations. Not being good explanations makes them not-good explanations. It doesn't make them not-explanations.
>Here is one physicist explaining how to falsify one version of the multiverse theory
As I understand it, the Many-World Interpretation is just related to interpreting the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics---the other worlds in this interpretation don't have different universal constants or laws of physics; rather, the different possibilities that quantum mechanics allows for are all realized in different worlds.
Anyway, Carroll goes on to say that it's falsifiable, but it seems he only means falsifiable in the sense that quantum mechanics is falsifiable (obviously falsifying quantum mechanics falsifies interpretations of it), which is why he notes different interpretations which are experimentally indistinguishable. The issue is that this interpretation is not falsifiable with respect to other interpretations, which Carroll admits himself. But this is likely neither here nor there since MWI isn't the same as the multiverse response to fine-tuning, but maybe you can correct me.
In discussing the multiverse, Carroll himself has an interesting paper [0] on the multiverse and how its lack of falsifiability is fine. Indeed, he's quite on-point here, falsifiability is not really all it's cracked up to be as the field of philosophy of science has shown after Popper's formulation of it. Still, unfalsifiable.
So to be sure, my original point was that the fine-tuning argument for a designer is still an explanation (even if it's a non-scientific one or poor one) and has just as much predictive power as other hypotheses (none). It also doesn't close the door to any further questions any more than the other responses to fine-tuning---it might move them to the realm of metaphysical questions rather than scientific ones (and even if scientific, not empirically falsifiable or confirmable), but the door is open. Maybe theists will go on to close that door for a variety of reasons, but the fault doesn't seem to lie with the fine-tuning argument itself.
>If you can trace the claim back to a bunch of religious quacks who otherwise never made meaningful contributions to science
"This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." - Isaac Newton, in the appendix of his Principia, apparently!
>one of the few things you're left with is appeal to authority.
I don't see why we need to resort to appeal to authority when we can make grounded criticisms of the fine-tuning argument. For example, why should we believe that the universal constants being what they are has a low probability, as if they were pulled from some probability distribution? That is, we can simply reject premise 2 of the argument as I outlined above.
The point is not that it's the greatest argument, but just that it's an explanation, not just meaningless drivel (like "because pixel cooked the music") as you were suggesting. And it has comparable (zero) predictive power to other hypotheses.
---------------------------------------------------------
I don't think this is relevant to the fine-tuning argument itself, but I'll respond to it anyway:
>First we were supposed to believe that the earth was flat, because that's how God made it.
This has never been a popular view among theologians or the church in the history of Christianity. The Aristotelian/Ptolemaic model (Aristotle, of course, not being Christian and writing centuries before the birth of Christ) seems to have been the dominant view until a bit after Galileo.
>in 6 days
We have discussion of this account in Genesis being allegorical among the early Church Fathers, very early in the history of Christianity.
>Then when that was disproven, we were supposed to believe that maybe it was older but it was the center of the universe. Then when that was disproven we were supposed to believe that maybe it revolved around the sun
We don't owe geocentrism to Christian thought but rather to the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic model. And geocentrism was on firm scientific ground at the time - astronomic tables in the Ptolemaic system and in the Copernican system had roughly the same magnitude of error. And the Ptolemaic system did not have the issue of not being able to explain why things on Earth did not move as if the Earth was moving - a problem that was only really solved until Newtownian physics, if I recall.
And the Copernican views weren't really problematic for the Church themselves, it seems that rabble-rousing by Giordano Bruno and Galileo was the real culprit for getting Copernicus's book banned. The Pope even gave Galileo a chance to express his views in the form of a dialogue, but Galileo didn't exactly give the other side a fair portrayal in this dialogue (calling the geocentrism-supporting character "Simplicio" and having him act like a fool).
Basically, it's just not true that geocentrism was church dogma held on religious grounds and refuted through science, at which point it was dropped---the history is more nuanced.
>God made us in his image
This is still held by Christians today and is not incompatible with evolution. Though yes, Christians certainly did not believe in evolution before Darwin.
>where once you get to God you are not allowed to ask any more questions
But we have a long history of Christianity being dominant among scientists asking questions about the natural world (and the intelligibility of the physical world is an idea very much in line with Christian thought). You talked about creationism - it was in fact a theist who formulated the theory of the Big Bang.
And indeed, theology is filled with questions about the nature of God and how to understand God's relationship with the world. See for example Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, which is nothing more than a list of questions and answers along with possible objections about reason, faith, God, and theology. Not a scientific work of course, but the point is you are certainly allowed to ask more questions.
>Hegelian dialectics
I don't see how Hegelian dialectics is an example of not being able to ask questions once you get to God? Or perhaps you mean that the supposed history of tension between religion and science you outlined is an example of Hegelian dialectics. I am not a Hegel scholar, but I thought dialectical tension is a good thing, not a bad thing?
The argument is, roughly speaking:
(1) The fine-tuning of universal constants is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. (2) It is not due to physical necessity or chance. (3) Therefore, it is due to design.
Ok, let me try and help you here.
In the argument, the designer is defined as beyond understanding right here: "(3) Therefore, it is due to design."
Still having trouble seeing it? Let me try and help a little more. It's here: "(3) THEREFORE, IT IS DUE TO DESIGN."
Do you see how absurd it would be for you to propose that this "design" came about on its own, or by chance? How that would put you right back on square one, exposing fine tuning as the mindless drivel that it is? Do you see how comical it would be of you to suggest that you have all the mysteries of this universe figured out and you are now ready to take on the challenge of figuring out its designer, or even more comically, that you have barely even begun understanding the universe you're in but you're "open" to leapfrogging right into figuring out the thing that designed it? Where else are you going to take this? The simulation hypothesis? As if the dude that built the simulator can be any less complicated than the dude that fine-tuned everything?
Let's resolve this disagreement before tackling the other issues you raise in your response. Do you still have trouble understanding where in the argument the designer is defined this way?
If you really mean "beyond empirical inquiry", I would be inclined to agree, though I don't know how other explanations for the fine-tuning of the universe are better in this respect.
Theologians have made many garbage assertions throughout centuries. Just because something is self-contradictory, paradoxical or nonsensical does not mean that a human hand can't put it down on paper. Here, watch this:
"A triangle does not have three sides. To find out why, and to get saved, come to the service on Sunday! (don't forget the donation)"
Other than theologians and their quackery, is there anything else that troubles you with regards to the assertion that the designer must be complex beyond understanding?
Furthermore, were you not trying to divorce religion from fine tuning? Are you finding that a little difficult? Do you see irony in the fact that you dragged it back into the dialogue all the while claiming that fine tuning can stand on its own?
Then you claim that one can't make a kind of an argument that I just demonstrated one can make.
Now you bring the problem of evil into the dialogue, as if that somehow brings the designer within reach of our understanding, when if anything it moves the concept even further beyond our reach.
Not to mention that with the problem of evil, you're dragging morality into this, another framework of thought just like religion, and closely coupled with it, that science does not deal with or recognize. All the while claiming that fine tuning can stand on its own.
You brought up a bunch of very interesting points in one of your previous posts that I would love to respond to, and I have enjoyed the discussion thus far, but I feel like it would be pointless to engage further unless you can clean up and strengthen your argumentation with regards to understanding the designer, so that it's free of contradictions and self-refutations. Or at least demonstrate willingness to concede a point.
Buying some of the theological arguments about God, even if they are employed by theists, still does not commit you to a particular religion. You can agree to the omnipotence and omnipresence of the designer but not its moral interest in the good of humanity, for example. See Spinoza's Ethics for an example of a thinker who subscribes to this and fleshes out an entire system with this in mind. (There might be some controversy on this point, but Spinoza scholar Steven Nadler calls Spinoza an atheist. It's not a stretch to say that you could agree to all the arguments made in Ethics but still not subscribe to any religion.) And of course, as I said in the last comment, you can still go to Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover as an example of a thinker who predated Christianity and had no affiliation with any traditional monotheistic religion. The point is that we need not commit to any religion but can still make arguments about certain properties of the designer.
>Now you bring the problem of evil into the dialogue, as if that somehow brings the designer within reach of our understanding, when if anything it moves the concept even further beyond our reach. >Not to mention that with the problem of evil, you're dragging morality into this, another framework of thought just like religion, and closely coupled with it, that science does not deal with or recognize. All the while claiming that fine tuning can stand on its own.
I only introduced the problem of evil so I could give a pithy description of an argument we can make that clearly does not commit us to any mainstream religion but still reveals something to us about the nature of the designer. This is just one clear example of how we could come to understand something about the designer, if you buy the argument.
But maybe this is the crux of the contention you're having with me - implicit in what you've just said is that when you say understanding, you only mean scientific understanding, and likely that when you say explanation, you only mean scientific explanation. As I said before, the fine-tuning argument does indeed move us out of the realm of science and into metaphysics. So the sense in which we can understand or explain things about the designer is no longer scientific, but metaphysical. But that's fine - understanding need not be scientific understanding, and explanations need not be scientific explanations.
Just to elucidate what exactly I've been defending:
The fine-tuning argument does not commit us to a particular religion (we can easily imagine that there is a designer but that no religion is true). It offers an explanation of why the universal constants are what they are (by design as opposed to chance or necessity). It does not shut down further discussion - we can still ask questions about the nature of the designer (see paragraphs 2 and 4 of this comment). The design theory has no predictive power, yes, just like how other explanations of why the universal constants are what they are have no predictive power.
You can stop saying "any particular religion" and just say "religion." I do accept that although fine tuning is almost exclusively pushed by Christian quacks, other religions can push it too. It also seems to be a bit of a straw-man, as I never asserted that it commits you to a specific religion, or to religion for that matter. You inevitably have to come back to it, as there is nowhere else you can take this nonsense, as you have aptly demonstrated, but you don't have to "commit" to it at the onset.
Then you comically bring up Spinoza, seemingly to strengthen your "any particular religion" point, but perhaps without realizing that he undermines your "understanding the designer" point. And you acknowledge literally in the same paragraph that he might have been an atheist. And not only that, but his concept of God, such as it is, is totally incompatible with fine tuning, because he doesn't even ascribe it intelligence. And not just that, but Spinoza ascribes quite meager power to the human mind, even denying us free will. So much for "understanding the designer" with Spinoza. Another self-refutation.
Then you even more comically bring up Aristotle, claiming that he has "no affiliation with any traditional religion," perhaps without realizing that Aristotle has become a staple in Christian theology from St. Aquinas onward. And not just that, but Aristotle also thought that God was beyond human comprehension. Another self-refutation.
Then you repeat your point about the problem of evil, without adding anything new, although it's already been refuted. The problem of evil does not help you come to understand something about the designer. All it does is weaken the ontological argument, and other arguments that depend on benevolence, and brings into question free will in both the designer and the human mind, without moving the needle one bit on any of the other issues that you have to content with in a benevolent designer.
Then you concede that fine tuning does indeed move us out of science, when earlier you were trying to demonstrate that it doesn't by citing the Elon Musk simulation joke meme. Nice.
I appreciate you clarifying the language on "understanding." Of course there is no such thing as scientific understanding of the designer, as science doesn't even recognize the concept (thank God, pun intended.) I thought you were the one trying to stay within science because you kept saying that you don't have to commit to religion, and citing things like the simulation hypothesis. When I say that the designer is beyond understanding, I mean primarily in the religious and metaphysical sense. In religion, his ways are mysterious. In metaphysics, he is all-knowing while the human mind is constrained and limited to our senses. That said, I would have accepted it if you were able to somehow demonstrate that there can be a scientific understanding of this concept, but it's now clear that that's not happening.
Also when I say "understanding" I obviously don't mean ascribing it paradoxical and otherwise nonsensical attributes the way I can assert right now that it has three eyes and a four-sided triangle for a mouth. When I say "understanding" I mean understanding why and what this designer is, as you put it earlier. I mean understanding how it came to be this way; to be able to go around fine-tuning things?
In your last paragraph you seem to want to broaden the scope of the dialogue without having refuted or conceded the point on understanding the designer, but we're going to have to stick to that until it's resolved, because it's kinda important. So here is the simple assertion you need to either refute or concede:
"Fine tuning posits a designer that is beyond human capacity to understand."
I don't understand? Maybe you can read my previous comment more carefully? I've mentioned Aristotle and Spinoza as more clear examples of thinkers who have thought about the designer and whose arguments, if you accept them, will still not commit you to any religion. I've also given a simple example related to the problem of evil of an argument that reveals something about the designer that does not commit you to any religion. I think it's clear at this point that fine-tuning does not commit you to a religion, and apparently you agree.
>Then you comically bring up Spinoza, seemingly to strengthen your "any particular religion" point, but perhaps without realizing that he undermines your "understanding the designer" point. And you acknowledge literally in the same paragraph that he might have been an atheist.
I don't understand? Atheism is not a religion. That he can be interpreted as an atheist implies that his arguments about the cause of reality (who you might argue is the same as the designer posited in the fine-tuning argument) shows that the positing of a designer and going on to ascribe properties to the designer via arguments can still keep you as an atheist, not a religious person.
>And not only that, but his concept of God, such as it is, is totally incompatible with fine tuning, because he doesn't even ascribe it intelligence.
Spinoza ascribes an intellect to God and describes God as a thinking thing.
>Spinoza ascribes quite meager power to the human mind
He proves many things about God in Ethics, proofs which are a result of the human mind.
>Then you even more comically bring up Aristotle, claiming that he has "no affiliation with any traditional religion," perhaps without realizing that Aristotle has become a staple in Christian theology from St. Aquinas onward. And not just that, but Aristotle also thought that God was beyond human comprehension. Another self-refutation.
Aristotle has no affiliation with any traditional religion in the sense that he was not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., and wouldn't have recognized these religions (not the least because the first two didn't exist during his time).
> And not just that, but Aristotle also thought that God was beyond human comprehension.
Aristotle discusses the unmoved mover philosophically and makes arguments about the kind of being it is, for example, that it has no potentiality.
>The problem of evil does not help you come to understand something about the designer. All it does is weaken the ontological argument, and other arguments that depend on benevolence, and brings into question free will in both the designer and the human mind, without moving the needle one bit on any of the other issues that you have to content with in a benevolent designer.
The problem of evil is something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all-good. It gets you to knowledge of the absence of a particular property of the designer. I don't know why this wouldn't be a form of understanding.
>When you concede that fine tuning does indeed move us out of science, when earlier you were trying to demonstrate that it doesn't by citing the Elon Musk simulation joke meme. Nice.
I don't know where I've said that understanding the designer is something we can do scientifically, or where I've implied that the fine-tuning argument does not move us out of science, maybe you can quote me to remind me. I don't take the simulation hypothesis very seriously either, but some people do (see Nick Bostrom), and it is something you might go to if you agree to the conclusion that the universal constants are what they are because of design.
>I thought you were the one trying to stay within science because you kept saying that you don't have to commit to religion
I don't think that religious understanding and scientific understanding exhaust the kinds of understanding we can have. The kind of understanding that's relevant here that is neither of these two things is metaphysical understanding. So not requiring a commitment to religion is not the same thing as being scientific here.
>When I say that the designer is beyond understanding, I mean primarily in the religious and metaphysical sense. In religion, his ways are mysterious. In metaphysics, he is all-knowing while the human mind is constrained and limited to our senses.
I don't understand what the designer being all-knowing in contrast to the human intellect being constrained has to do with the designer being beyond understanding. Again, go back to Aristotle or Spinoza's arguments for examples of ways one can come to ascribe properties to the designer (hence, understand aspects of the designer) without committing to religion.
Maybe I'll guess at what the confusion might be here - I read "not being beyond understanding" not to mean "having a full understanding". For example, the natural world is not beyond understanding (science has allowed us to gain knowledge of various things about the natural world), but it is not something we have a full understanding of---and it perhaps may not be something we ever have a full understanding of. But I, and I suspect almost everyone, would not say the natural world is beyond understanding even if it is something we will never have a full understanding of. One might argue the finitude of human intellect means we cannot come to a full understanding of God, but this says nothing about whether we can understanding some things about God.
>That said, I would have accepted it if you were able to somehow demonstrate that there can be a scientific understanding of this concept, but it's now clear that that's not happening.
I believe I said as much earlier, but I'm sorry if I've miscommunicated that.
>Also when I say "understanding" I obviously don't mean ascribing it paradoxical and otherwise nonsensical attributes the way I can assert right now that it has three eyes and a four-sided triangle for a mouth. When I say "understanding" I mean understanding why and what this designer is, as you put it earlier. I mean understanding how it came to be this way; to be able to go around fine-tuning things?
Yes, I don't mean ascribing it contradictory attributes either, and I don't think I've said anything like this. I mean ascribing it attributes like being all-good or not being all-good. Or being a thinking thing, being an extended thing, etc. See Spinoza's Ethics for a very clear example of arguing for particular attributes (he uses the same language) belonging to God, who you might argue is the designer.
>In your last paragraph you seem to want to broaden the scope of the dialogue without having refuted or conceded the point on understanding the designer, but we're going to have to stick to that until it's resolved, because it's kinda important.
I just want to make it clear what I've been saying, so that we don't get confused and start thinking that I'm saying things that I'm not, e.g. that understanding the designer is within the scope of science.
>So here is the simple assertion you need to either refute or concede:
I think I've already said much more than needed to explain why the fine-tuning argument does not posit a designer that is beyond understanding, but I'll summarize it again: There are arguments that, if you buy them, lead you to knowledge of particular properties of the designer.
And just so we don't miss the forest for the trees here, that the designer is not beyond understanding is important because it is still something we can inquire about---it does not shut down further discussion about the topic. Go back to the thinkers I've mentioned so far for examples of inquiry into the kind of existence the designer is.
Really? You didn't understand me? That's weird, seeing as you claim to be able to understand none other than God. Contradiction
>I've mentioned Aristotle and Spinoza as more clear examples of thinkers who have thought about the designer
Those two have done no such thing. Their concepts of God are incompatible with the designer. One is non-intelligent, and the other is indifferent. False claim
>I think it's clear at this point that fine-tuning does not commit you to a religion, and apparently you agree.
I neither agree nor disagree. I haven't taken a position on it yet as I think it's irrelevant to the argument of understanding the designer. Religion will come up when and if we ever bubble back up from this question of understanding the designer. Non sequitur
>I don't understand?
Oops... Here is this powerful mind that can understand God, not understanding some text on the internet again. How is it possible that a bunch of words is beyond your understanding, but the thing that fine tuned the thing that caused the thing that made the words come together is not beyond your understanding? Could it be that the words are imperfect, but God is perfect and free of contradictions? In which case how do you know this? Or did you mean that God is within human understanding, just not within yours? We just need to find somebody with a big enough brain? Or do you want to redefine "understanding" yet again, to whatever fits your current mid-sentence point? Contradiction
>Atheism is not a religion. That he can be interpreted as an atheist...
Ok... Atheism not a religion... Got it... Gonna interpret Spinoza as an atheist for this argument... Got it... Let's pin this.
>the positing of a designer and going on to ascribe properties to the designer via arguments can still keep you as an atheist
No it can't. Spinoza did not posit a designer, and positing a designer makes you a non-atheist, by definition. Not that this has anything to do with understanding such a designer. False claim
>Spinoza ascribes an intellect to God and describes God as a thinking thing.
Hey, remember that thing we pinned? Here is your atheist, acting like a theist. Contradiction
Also, Spinoza's idea of the intellect that you reference is incompatible with the intelligence required for the fine tuner. Non sequitur
>He proves many things about God in Ethics
Here is that guy you interpreted as an atheist going on and on about God, yet again... Or is he a theist now? You want to interpret him as the opposite of what you just interpreted him as? Tell you what, why don't you just interpret him as whatever you feel like at any given moment? Maybe next time he becomes a Hulk Hogan sidekick? Or you could just interpret him as me agreeing with you? Wouldn't that make it easy? All I ask is that you give him a big mustache. Contradiction
Also, no one has ever proven even the existence of God, let alone "many things" about him. All meta-physicists do is postulate. False claim
Moreover, even if he did prove something about something, even God, that would not show that he did not ascribe meager power to the human mind. Non sequitur
>Aristotle has no affiliation with any traditional religion in the sense that he was not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., and wouldn't have recognized these religions (not the least because the first two didn't exist during his time).
Aristotle is 100% affiliated with Christianity because St. Aquinas affiliated him with it. The fact that he was dead before St. Aquinas was born is irrelevant to the fact that he is now affiliated with St. Aquinas' religion, as his arguments can be found all over Christian theology. False claim
Moreover, you did not seem to mind dragging him into fine tuning, although he was dead before fine tuning came about. So you want to have it both ways? When it's convenient for you, it's Ok to affiliate him with a concept (fine tuning) although he was dead before the concept came about, but when it gets inconvenient for you, it's suddenly not Ok to affiliate him with a concept (Christianity) because he was dead before it came about? Bad faith
>The problem of evil is something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all-good.
The problem of evil is not something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all good, because you would need to establish the designer first, and the problem of evil does not do that. False claim
>It gets you to knowledge of the absence of a particular property of the designer.
It does not get you to knowledge of the absence of a property of the designer because it does not even establish the designer. All it does is show that a particular kind of a designer is logically inconsistent. So you would need to first establish this designer, before you can start getting to knowing some of its properties. But how are you going to establish this designer? Fine tuning? But you are in the middle of arguing that fine tuning is not nonsense. So you want to use a time machine to jump forward in time where you have established fine tuning as a valid argument, and then jump back here to use it to support the thing that supports it? Circular reasoning
>I don't know why this wouldn't be a form of understanding.
This would not be a form of understanding because it is not possible to understand something full of internal contradictions, paradoxes and circular reasoning that the problem of evil brings with it into fine tuning.
>I don't know where I've said that understanding the designer is something we can do scientifically
I inferred it from you bringing up the simulation hypothesis.
>I don't take the simulation hypothesis very seriously either
Why in the world would you bring something you don't even take seriously yourself into the dialogue? Have you already run out of things you do take seriously? Bad faith
>I don't think that religious understanding and scientific understanding exhaust the kinds of understanding we can have. The kind of understanding that's relevant here that is neither of these two things is metaphysical understanding. So not requiring a commitment to religion is not the same thing as being scientific here.
Totally irrelevant to the question of understanding the designer, but let's be honest here: religion and metaphysics are basically two peas in a pod.
>I don't understand what the designer being all-knowing in contrast to the human intellect being constrained has to do with the designer being beyond understanding.
Again something you just don't understand. You're doing a lot of not understanding for somebody who understands God. In this case, one is beyond understanding of the other because one is infinitely larger than the other.
>Maybe I'll guess at what the confusion might be here - I read "not being beyond understanding" not to mean "having a full understanding". For example, the natural world is not beyond understanding (science has allowed us to gain knowledge of various things about the natural world), but it is not something we have a full understanding of---and it perhaps may not be something we ever have a full understanding of. But I, and I suspect almost everyone, would not say the natural world is beyond understanding even if it is something we will never have a full understanding of. One might argue the finitude of human intellect means we cannot come to a full understanding of God, but this says nothing about whether we can understanding some things about God.
I don't think there is confusion here. I suspect you are feigning ignorance. I could not have been more clear on what I meant by "understanding." "Full understanding," or "complete understanding" is a very problematic concept, that may be either paradoxical or impossible depending on the framework used, and I would not have used it. I defined understanding using your own words ("why and what the designer is") and I added "and how it came to be this way, that it can fine tune universes". How could you be confused with your own words?
>Yes, I don't mean ascribing it contradictory attributes either, and I don't think I've said anything like this. I mean ascribing it attributes like being all-good or not being all-good.
Here, in the second sentence you are doing the thing that you said you never did in the first sentence. There is no such thing as an all-good designer, as you demonstrated yourself with the problem of evil. And you cannot ascribe the not-all-good attribute to a thing you have not even established yet. You cannot use Argument A (problem of evil) to support Argument B (fine tuning) while at the same time using Argument B to support Argument A. Circular reasoning
>I think I've already said much more than needed to explain why the fine-tuning argument does not posit a designer that is beyond understanding, but I'll summarize it again: There are arguments that, if you buy them, lead you to knowledge of particular properties of the designer.
You have done no such thing. All you've done so far was engage in contradictions, self-refutations, circular reasoning, false claims and other fallacies, so characteristic of goddidit. Not to mention the fact that the definition of understanding you're using in your summary here is yet another reinterpretation, which is not only inconsistent with the definition I gave, but it is also inconsistent with your own wrong interpretation of my definition, where it means "full understanding." Here you are reinterpreting understanding to mean "ascribing paradoxical properties that depend on circular reasoning."
Want to have another go? Just so we don't miss the forest for the trees here, here is the assertion you need to either refute or concede:
"Fine tuning posits a designer that is beyond human capacity to understand."
>Really? You didn't understand me? That's weird, seeing as you claim to be able to understand none other than God. Contradiction
I didn't claim to be able to understand God. What I claimed is that the fine-tuning argument does not posit a designer that is beyond understanding.
>Those two have done no such thing. Their concepts of God are incompatible with the designer. One is non-intelligent, and the other is indifferent. False claim
Both thinkers ascribe an intellect to God.
However - yes, Spinoza's God is indifferent, and you might reasonably argue that Spinoza's system isn't reconcilable with the fine-tuning argument (Spinoza himself would say that the universe is the way it is out of necessity.)
But the point here is that Spinoza---several of whose arguments are not that alien to the traditional theology before him---is a thinker one could look to to see arguments about the cause of the universe has certain properties. Look at Ethics until Proposition XVII. One can argue for the designer, argue that he is to be identified with substance, and accept all these propositions---coming away with understanding of the designer.
Really, I only mention Spinoza and Aristotle here because I thought one would be less inclined to dismiss them out of hand as saying anything remotely similar to "A triangle does not have three sides. To find out why, and to get saved, come to the service on Sunday! (don't forget the donation)". Of course, Spinoza and Aristotle are not the only ones who discuss God in a way not like this. You can see, for example, Aquinas's discussion of whether God has X property in his Summa, and he makes no assertions like this---but since my earlier mention of theologians elicited the reaction that it did, I tried not to discuss traditional theology further. And no, this is not me saying that further discussion of designer requires religion---one can buy certain arguments about God and his properties but still reject religion; reading the Summa does not force you to buy every single claim that Aquinas makes (even many Christians don't). One can agree with some claims and disagree with others---it's certainly possible to buy the fine-tuning argument and then buy certain Aquinas-style arguments that the designer has certain properties, but disagree with Aquinas's arguments that the designer is to be identified with the God of any religion. Indeed, a common criticism of arguments for God is that even if they succeed and are even successful in establishing certain properties of God, they are not sufficient in establishing the truth of religion.
>Spinoza and atheism
Indeed, it is true that Nadler's thought here is a bit hard to make sense of given Spinoza's discussion of God since belief in God seems to directly contradict atheism, as you've correctly pointed out. What I think Nadler has in mind here is that Spinoza's God is so radically different from the normal theistic conception of God that he is essentially atheist, see a short article by him on his explanation of why Spinoza is atheist [0]. I'm not sure he is using atheist in the normal sense of the word here, yes. I bring this claim of Nadler's up only to make Spinoza's thought (a good portion of which is not too different from, say, Aquinas's thought) and arguments about God and various properties of him more amenable and less liable to dismiss him out of hand for trying to donate to some church, or something like this.
>Also, Spinoza's idea of the intellect that you reference is incompatible with the intelligence required for the fine tuner. Non sequitur
It's not clear that this is the case. The intellect that Spinoza ascribes to God is not unlike the intellect that, just for example, Aquinas, fairly orthodox (little-o) in his theology (and whose fifth way is in a sense a predecessor of design arguments like the fine-tuning argument), ascribes to God. It seems reasonable to say Spinoza's further arguments (e.g. that there is nothing contingent in the world) are ones one cannot square with the fine-tuning argument, but one is not forced to buy those arguments.
>Also, no one has ever proven even the existence of God, let alone "many things" about him. All meta-physicists do is postulate. False claim
Philosophers who engage in metaphysics are primarily in the business of not just postulating arbitrary metaphysical claims, but rather in making arguments for metaphysical claims.
>Moreover, even if he did prove something about something, even God, that would not show that he did not ascribe meager power to the human mind. Non sequitur
The original claim here was that Spinoza ascribed meager power to the human mind, and thus claimed God was beyond understanding. In this sense of "meager power", clearly, Spinoza did not think so, as he believed he had proved various things about God, hence, understood various things about God.
>Aristotle is 100% affiliated with Christianity because St. Aquinas affiliated him with it. The fact that he was dead before St. Aquinas was born is irrelevant to the fact that he is now affiliated with St. Aquinas' religion, as his arguments can be found all over Christian theology. False claim
I don't know what to say here except to repeat again - Aristotle has no affiliation with any traditional religion in the sense that he was not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., and wouldn't have recognized these religions (not the least because the first two didn't exist during his time). Aristotle does have an affiliation with Christianity in the sense that his thought was influential on important Christian theologians, such as Aquinas, yes, but this is not the only sense in which a person has a religious affiliation. I mean religious affiliation in the sense that one would normally interpret the question "What is your religious affiliation?" to which the answer has nothing to do with whether your thought has influenced some religion in some major way. Clearly, Aristotle was not affiliated with Christianity in this sense, even if he were alive today, not the least because many aspects of his thought needed to be reinterpreted to be squared with Christian theology. This is relevant because there is no contradiction in someone being an Aristotelian today but not subscribing to any religion, just to illustrate the point of how there is thought compatible with understanding the designer that does not tie one into any religion.
>Moreover, you did not seem to mind dragging him into fine tuning, although he was dead before fine tuning came about. So you want to have it both ways? When it's convenient for you, it's Ok to affiliate him with a concept (fine tuning) although he was dead before the concept came about, but when it gets inconvenient for you, it's suddenly not Ok to affiliate him with a concept (Christianity) because he was dead before it came about? Bad faith
I haven't dragged him into fine-tuning or affiliated him with fine-tuning. What I have done is pointed to him as an example of someone whose arguments about the designer of the world (unmoved mover) could be leveraged to establish properties of the designer, hence gain understanding of the designer. The only reason I have pointed to him as opposed to, say, Aquinas, is to avoid a dismissive response involving donations to a church.
>The problem of evil is not something you can use as an argument that the designer is not all good, because you would need to establish the designer first, and the problem of evil does not do that. False claim
But what's at stake here is not whether any argument succeeds in establishing the designer. What's at stake here is whether the fine-tuning argument posits a designer that is beyond understanding. What I'm saying here is that if one buys the fine-tuning argument, one could plausibly establish that the designer could not be all-good via the problem of evil, thus gaining knowledge of the designer, viz. that the designer is not all-good.
>It does not get you to knowledge of the absence of a property of the designer because it does not even establish the designer. All it does is show that a particular kind of a designer is logically inconsistent. So you would need to first establish this designer, before you can start getting to knowing some of its properties. But how are you going to establish this designer? Fine tuning? But you are in the middle of arguing that fine tuning is not nonsense. So you want to use a time machine to jump forward in time where you have established fine tuning as a valid argument, and then jump back here to use it to support the thing that supports it? Circular reasoning
But I'm not in the business of establishing a designer, what I am in the business of is establishing that the fine-tuning argument is not positing a designer beyond understanding. Indeed, I am saying that the fine-tuning argument is not nonsense. Of course, an argument doesn't have to succeed to not be nonsense. (Aside: this is why there is a stark difference in tone between the SEP article for the fine-tuning argument [1] and intelligent design [2], relevant here due to your earlier comments about both being equally silly examples of "Goddidit". )
>This would not be a form of understanding because it is not possible to understand something full of internal contradictions, paradoxes and circular reasoning that the problem of evil brings with it into fine tuning.
Continue off the fine-tuning argument as presented in three statements earlier.(1) and (2) are premises and (3) is the conclusion (and it is a valid argument - accepting the premises logically leads to the conclusion---perhaps it is not a sound argument, but that is neither here nor there). Suppose you accept this argument (because you accept (1) and (2)), and then accept that there was a designer of the universe. Now consider this argument:
Premise (1): There is evil in the universe. Premise (2): If the designer was all-good, there would be no evil in the universe. Conclusion (3): The designer is not all-good.
If you accept (1) and (2) of the fine-tuning argument (and also go on to accept that the universe was designed by a designer), and accept (1) and (2) of this argument, you are logically led to knowledge of the designer, hence understanding of the designer. So it seems that the acceptance of the fine-tuning does not logically lead us into a designer which we can no longer gain forms of understanding of.
>Why in the world would you bring something you don't even take seriously yourself into the dialogue? Have you already run out of things you do take seriously? Bad faith
What I do or don't take seriously isn't relevant to whether the fine-tuning argument posits a designer that is beyond understanding or whether religion is the only place you can take the fine-tuning argument to. I don't buy the fine-tuning argument either (because I am skeptical of premise (2)), but I think credit should be given where credit is due. "Bad faith" doesn't demonstrate that an argument is invalid anyway.
>Totally irrelevant to the question of understanding the designer, but let's be honest here: religion and metaphysics are basically two peas in a pod.
I don't know why a kind of understanding we can have of the designer would be irrelevant to the question of understanding the designer, namely because showing that that kind of understanding of the designer is possible, then that answers the question of understanding the designer.
>religion and metaphysics are basically two peas in a pod
Well, this is a contentious claim among theist and atheist philosophers alike, so it warrants being substantiated.
>Again something you just don't understand. You're doing a lot of not understanding for somebody who understands God. In this case, one is beyond understanding of the other because one is infinitely larger than the other.
I don't see how God's intellect being infinitely larger than human intellect implies that God is beyond understanding.
>How could you be confused with your own words?
I don't think I am, if this isn't the confusion, then I'm sorry.
You can see the thinkers mentioned thus far for arguments of what God is, why God is, or how God came to be this way that it can fine-tune universes.
>Here, in the second sentence you are doing the thing that you said you never did in the first sentence. There is no such thing as an all-good designer, as you demonstrated yourself with the problem of evil. And you cannot ascribe the not-all-good attribute to a thing you have not even established yet. You cannot use Argument A (problem of evil) to support Argument B (fine tuning) while at the same time using Argument B to support Argument A. Circular reasoning
But I'm not using one argument to support another. What I am doing is giving just one example of how one might go about this project of understanding the designer posited by the fine-tuning argument---namely, using the problem of evil to establish that the designer cannot be all-good, thus gaining understanding of the designer.
>All you've done so far was engage in contradictions, self-refutations, circular reasoning, false claims and other fallacies, so characteristic of goddidit.
But it's not clear that I've done this in what I've said to explain why the fine-tuning argument does not posit a designer that is beyong understanding.
>Here you are reinterpreting understanding to mean "ascribing paradoxical properties that depend on circular reasoning."
But this isn't what I've said.
>Want to have another go?
Not particularly.
Now that I've hit the HN limit for a comment's limit (...among other reasons), I now suspect that HN is no longer the appropriate place for this discussion anyway (unless someone tells me that it would be fruitful for me to continue replying here). If you'd like to continue, feel free to drop an email (or XMPP or Matrix account---but please, not Discord or anything like that).
[0]: https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/964/spinoza-the-atheist
[1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/#FineTuniDesi - "Indeed, many regard the argument from fine-tuning for a designer as the strongest version of the teleological argument that contemporary science affords."
[2]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism - "Scientifically Creationism is worthless, philosophically it is confused, and theologically it is blinkered beyond repair."