existence of the universe, God, and physics

[Metric]

I often see threads concerned with the existence of the universe, how physics plays into it, and how God relates to "first cause" arguments. Here I'd like to put forth my own thoughts on the matter...

The main issue as I see it is that the laws of physics cannot explain their own existence -- their own manifestation in reality. Often times I see people invoke "quantum fluctuations" to explain the existence of the universe, but this is in some sense misguided as a fundamental explanation -- for quantum fluctuations to take place, you first need a universe operating according to the rules of quantum mechanics. This is likely to be the case for ANY physical theory useful for describing what happens within the universe -- in order to invoke such a theory as an explanation for the existence of things, you first need a universe where "theory X" is already established and functioning.

As an analogy, consider your car. Suppose you go into the glove compartment and find a rough blueprint for the car. If you want, you can improve on this blueprint through exploration. With time, you can gain a better and better understanding of the car through a process vaguely similar to science. However, the question of "why is my car a Honda and not a Porsche" is not to be answered by this process. In fact, there may be some excellent reasons that the blueprints you have tend to converge more and more over time to something known as a "Honda Civic." Something dictates that Honda blueprints describe the physical reality inside your garage, while Porsche blueprints (as far as you are concerned) remain an abstract concept existing on paper only -- but that something is not on the blueprints!

So here we are in our universe, gaining better information over time about the laws of physics. This is a profound and worthwhile endeavor, but my feeling is that it is not going to be terribly useful for understanding what gives the universe its physical reality. I certainly believe that something gives the universe physical reality -- I don't see much of an alternative. But I don't think understanding that something is going to be accomplished by finding the "next order correction" to our understanding of the laws of physics. By its nature, it is likely to be a qualitatively different enterprise.

Now some definitions from this point of view: Virtually everyone believes that there is a something which grants our particular set of physical laws reality. If you believe (or assume) that this something has some properties vaguely similar to what we would call consciousness or self-awareness or personality, then you call this something God, and people call you a theist or deist. If you believe (or assume) that this something does not have consciousness or personality associated with it, then I'm not sure what you call it -- maybe just "something" for now, but in any case other people call you an atheist. But my contention is that whatever this "something" is, it is almost certainly not described by physics in the usual sense of the word, though we all believe in "it" in one way or another.

[chezlaw]

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Now some definitions from this point of view: Virtually everyone believes that there is a something which grants our particular set of physical laws reality. If you believe (or assume) that this something has some properties vaguely similar to what we would call consciousness or personality, then you call this something God, and people call you a theist or deist. If you believe (or assume) that this something does not have consciousness or personality associated with it, then I'm not sure what you call it -- maybe just "something" for now, but in any case other people call you an atheist. But my contention is that whatever this "something" is, it is almost certainly not described by physics in the usual sense of the word.

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but it just raises the question about what grants the existence of the something that grants the existence of the physical universe, we're just back at another version of the same old first cause question.

Sure its beyond current physics and almost certainly beyond finite science and reasoning but that's no excuse for those who claim reasonable belief about it.

chez

[David Sklansky]

I sure don't have a problem with your "something". I do have a problem with that something going out of its way to create almost a googol subatomic particles, over 15 billion years, in a universe octillions miles across, with quintillions of stars and planets, so that one planet, during one ten millionth of its existence, would have one out of 100 million species, for one onethousandth of its reign on earth, be eligible for special consideration if individuals would only believe a particular moronic story among hunderds that have been thrown out.

[Matt R.]

Metric,
It is eery how closely your thoughts tend to match mine on these types of issues. You have an astounding ability to put your ideas on these matters into words that are easy to understand (I like your car analogy by the way). After reading your posts, I often find myself nodding my head and wishing I would have thought of that. Except for your quantum posts -- then I'm just confused /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

I have a couple of questions for you that relate to this in some way. How likely do you think it is that we live in a multiverse? Do you think it would be even possible to know this for sure, or would this be inherently unknowable because it lies completely outside our system that we can observe? Would the physics in other universes (in the multiverse) operate similarly to our own -- in the sense that if we tweak the parameters the physics would be recognizable? (Obviously this is all personal speculation).

Some other questions. Suppose this ultimate "creator" you define in your post IS conscious in some way -- the way a theist or deist would typically think of God. It is my contention that it should at least be *possible* to understand this "creator" in terms of physics -- possibly similar physics to our own universe, but not necessarily. If we were to somehow experimentally verify the nature of the creator in such a way, I would guess that he/she/it would cease to be "God" in the eyes of most people. It would simply be looked at as another link in the chain of knowledge. Basically I think that people often, for one reason or another, associate knowledge of how something physically works with evidence against God (sort of like your car example). I don't understand why conscious creation of something necessitates that we cannot understand it. (Back to my original question) Do you think a creator (conscious or not) would be explainable by physical law -- even if it is vastly different than our own universe's physical law? Or do you think anything that "creates" a universe must supercede physics (the way we think of it) in pretty much every way?

Borodog made a post some time ago regarding consciousness that your post reminded me of. Do you think that physics (again, the way we think of it today) can explain consciousness? For instance, say we come to a perfect unified theory that explains everything from the quantum level to the celestial level (by celestial I mean "big" bodies of course -- planets, stars, black holes, etc. -- not heavenly /images/graemlins/smile.gif). Armed with this perfect model, do you think it can explain the "self"? Or do you think the physics of consciousness lies somewhere else entirely... where we will have to define completely different criteria to even hope to understand it?

Sorry for the million questions. Your post got the gears grinding, and I am curious as to your thoughts on some of these matters.

[FortunaMaximus]

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I sure don't have a problem with your "something". I do have a problem with that something going out of its way to create almost a googol subatomic particles, over 15 billion years, in a universe octillions miles across, with quintillions of stars and planets, so that one planet, during one ten millionth of its existence, would have one out of 100 million species, for one onethousandth of its reign on earth, be eligible for special consideration if individuals would only believe a particular moronic story among hunderds that have been thrown out.

[/ QUOTE ]

No kiddin', and I can't find the natural science to explain what Metric suggests without sounding like a kooky moron. Quantum mechanics is gonna have to do for now. From monosyllablic grunts to Latin to Romance languages. Causality is such a crock, but people are conditioned on a if this... then... basis that I give up trying most of the time.

I'll see what readin' that quantum gravity textbook does this week. Apologies in advance if I wink out of existence.

[chezlaw]

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for special consideration if individuals would only believe a particular moronic story among hunderds that have been thrown out.

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moronic story!, finally the real reason not to believe it.

though you are becoming judgemental, you had a go at drugs for being despicable before.

chez

[Metric]

My post is not really an attempt to solve the "first cause" problem -- it is merely to point out that physics is not and should not be expected to be a self-contained explanation for existence. At some point, some kind of qualitative jump to "something else" is essential -- what kind of a jump it is, and what it would be based on (if not the standard scientific gathering of information) is of course totally mysterious. I was also hoping to cast the theist/atheist distinction in terms of a slightly larger-than-usual picture.

This might be trivial and something you've realized for years, but I thought I might as well put it out there...

[Jasper109]

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I sure don't have a problem with your "something". I do have a problem with that something going out of its way to create almost a googol subatomic particles, over 15 billion years, in a universe octillions miles across, with quintillions of stars and planets, so that one planet, during one ten millionth of its existence, would have one out of 100 million species, for one onethousandth of its reign on earth, be eligible for special consideration if individuals would only believe a particular moronic story among hunderds that have been thrown out.

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No kiddin'

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[Borodog]

Metric,

Brilliant post. Do you have any thoughts that might help my in my "Calling BruceZ" thread?

[Borodog]

David,

Being a mathematician, I would also appreciate any neurons you could spare to the problem in the "Calling BruceZ" thread.

[soon2bepro]

Correct metric, there's probably a something. But to try to adjudicate any sort of characteristic to "it" is completely ridiculous. You can't get to this something without understading a reality that goes beyond our universe, either because that's where this something is/comes from, or to use this "alternate/wider reality" as a reference of what's different in our reality or our portion of reality.

I hate how it sounds to be calling it "a something that grants physical laws to our universe" because it sounds like I'm trying to describe something with very particular qualities, which as I said are ridiculous to assume or even suggest.

An alternate possibility is that fundamental physical laws have no possible explanation, but are rather the only way in which things can exist (in our reality/any given reality? It doesn't make much difference)... And this is how science adresses the subject. It doesn't matter what, if anything, makes things work the way they do, understanding how they work should be sufficient for practical and theoretical purposes.

[CityFan]

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Virtually everyone believes that there is a something which grants our particular set of physical laws reality.

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Virtually, yes. I don't, and I don't believe I'm alone.

To use your car analogy: Why does there have to be some force or being that determines that your car is a Honda Civic? It just is. Maybe the garage next door has a Porsche in it, but you have a Civic. So what?

Returning to universes: Why insist that our universe "exists" an a way that all the other possible universes don't?

In fact, why separate the universe itself from the set of laws that it obeys? The universe exists as the solution to a set of equations. Perhaps it is no more than that.

I know that way of thinking causes problems when it comes to explaining consciousness; but so do the alternatives.

[bocablkr]

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I sure don't have a problem with your "something". I do have a problem with that something going out of its way to create almost a googol subatomic particles, over 15 billion years, in a universe octillions miles across, with quintillions of stars and planets, so that one planet, during one ten millionth of its existence, would have one out of 100 million species, for one onethousandth of its reign on earth, be eligible for special consideration if individuals would only believe a particular moronic story among hunderds that have been thrown out.

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That is one impressive sentence - did you write it with one breath /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[Metric]

It sounds like your solution is that every possible equation is manifest as a physical reality somewhere. I sympathize with the spirit behind this idea, but practically speaking even the definition of "equation" becomes vague -- at some point if you don't impose some kind of structure on this idea, it becomes utterly meaningless. And if you do impose structure, you have to wonder (or at least I would wonder) "why this particular structure and not a different one?" So in the end, I'm pretty sure that you believe in a reality-granting something at some level, unless in the spirit of a "Sklansky assumption" you just don't want to consider that there could be any kind of non-trivial structure at all in the "extended universe."

[Metric]

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How likely do you think it is that we live in a multiverse? Do you think it would be even possible to know this for sure, or would this be inherently unknowable because it lies completely outside our system that we can observe? Would the physics in other universes (in the multiverse) operate similarly to our own -- in the sense that if we tweak the parameters the physics would be recognizable? (Obviously this is all personal speculation).

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I can't really estimate "how likely" all this is, but I do tend to think that there are "alternate realities" associated with other branches of the universe's quantum mechanical wave function, in a "many worlds interpretation" sort of way. There are some interesting information theoretic reasons to think this might be the case, but I don't want to run off too far on the very first question... As for completely seperate universes not connected even by a wave function -- I hesitate to even speculate. I suppose string theory might push you in this direction if you take their "string landscape" and anthropic arguments seriously -- so in a way I suppose you could say that clear evidence for string theory might be evidence for completely seperate universes with different particle interactions, etc (though the physics in these other universe would still be another form of "string theory"). However, I personally have some doubts about string theory, so...

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Some other questions. Suppose this ultimate "creator" you define in your post IS conscious in some way -- the way a theist or deist would typically think of God. It is my contention that it should at least be *possible* to understand this "creator" in terms of physics -- possibly similar physics to our own universe, but not necessarily. If we were to somehow experimentally verify the nature of the creator in such a way, I would guess that he/she/it would cease to be "God" in the eyes of most people. It would simply be looked at as another link in the chain of knowledge. Basically I think that people often, for one reason or another, associate knowledge of how something physically works with evidence against God (sort of like your car example). I don't understand why conscious creation of something necessitates that we cannot understand it. (Back to my original question) Do you think a creator (conscious or not) would be explainable by physical law -- even if it is vastly different than our own universe's physical law? Or do you think anything that "creates" a universe must supercede physics (the way we think of it) in pretty much every way?

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Good question -- If there were self-awareness associated with the "reality granting structure of the universe" I think you're right in that there could be a way to understand it from an analytical sort of approach -- at least, no obvious reason why this couldn't be the case is occurring to me right now. However, if you simply want to sort of picture God living in another universe (one level up) -- then I think that some of the other statements people have made come into force -- you would immediately be curious about what created that universe, and so on. So to really get out of the chain, something about the explanation (be it self-aware or not) is going to have to be really fundamentally different -- I don't know if that includes our ability to understand "it" or not, but I don't see an immediate reason to give up on it.

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Borodog made a post some time ago regarding consciousness that your post reminded me of. Do you think that physics (again, the way we think of it today) can explain consciousness? For instance, say we come to a perfect unified theory that explains everything from the quantum level to the celestial level (by celestial I mean "big" bodies of course -- planets, stars, black holes, etc. -- not heavenly /images/graemlins/smile.gif). Armed with this perfect model, do you think it can explain the "self"? Or do you think the physics of consciousness lies somewhere else entirely... where we will have to define completely different criteria to even hope to understand it?

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I think we have enough fundamental physics to understand brain functioning right now. However, that's very far from being able to use it to build the right models of consciousness. Again, there is a sort of qualitative jump here -- knowing the physics just gives you the boundaries on the games you're allowed to play. That's very far from disentangling and knowing the significance behind every physical event happening inside the brain.

[cambraceres]

It seems that the study of the special sciences is directly reducible to the study of your own consciousness. For instamce, in QM, objective reality hinges upon ab element of consciousness, observation. We cannot say very much about this most complicated of existents, the brain.

I believe it is clear at this point that a qualitatively distinct set of assumptions will be needed to explain the why for the is, just as you said .

Thing is, maybe this whole devious sytem of existence and consciousness is something about which we should not ask the question why. Perhaps our humanity is that which keeps us from an exhaustive elucidation of the ways and means of our dynamic universe.

In QM, the observer and the experiment are as one, reality is the same, meaningful only in terms of the observer. Maybe not observer created, but observer validated.

Cam

[luckyme]

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At some point, some kind of qualitative jump to "something else" is essential

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That's the part that seems the leap to me. Given that all the progress we make reveals incrementalism at work, it seems premature to assume that a few of interesting problems we're working on require leaping. Assuming we don't consider relativity, QM or string theory any kind of leap, even though they shift the framework pretty drastically.

luckyme

[Metric]

I'm not arguing that there's anything misguided about incremetal improvements to physics model building. It's a great way to get better models. My argument is that better models don't help you with the question of why the final "100% correct" model assumes physical reality, while an alternate model just sits there on paper.

[Skidoo]

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I think we have enough fundamental physics to understand brain functioning right now.

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You make several interesting points, yet the quoted assertion seems incorrect.

Otherwise, where is the artificial brain in demonstration of such an understanding? It's hardly scientific to talk of mere qualitative accuracy without positive quantifiability.

[Metric]

The problem of understanding consciousness is not one of understanding the fundamental physics involved (the statement of mine you quoted is probably the least controversial one I made) -- the problem is that it quickly becomes practically impossible to use the Standard Model to compute the precise state of ~ 10^25 interacting particles. The equations of the standard model are certainly more than good enough on the energy scale of interactions taking place in the brain, but if you want to solve them it's going to take you the age of the universe to do all the computation that would be required in a "perfect simulation."

So the way to proceed is to find out which interactions taking place in the brain are important to consciousness, and which ones can be mostly ignored -- this is a hard problem, and it's clearly qualitatively different from knowing the next order correction to particle physics at the 100TeV energy scale (there are no fundamental interactions taking place in the brain at an energy higher than a few eV).

[Skidoo]

A few eV discharged by neural conduction? Surly that can't be the final measure of mental potential.

[Metric]

Of course not, but it sets the energy scale of the required physics. At the scale of a few eV, you certainly don't need the full standard model (to say nothing about next-generation theories). In fact, you'd want to simplify and make approximations left and right to get down to a model that you could actually hope to simulate with enough computing power some day -- but that's still incredibly ambitious...

[FortunaMaximus]

Yes, it is, but that is not to say it isn't a noble ambition. I've been mulling over cybernetics theory and keeping an eye on bioinformatics developments, trying to tie the two together in a coordinated POV.

The long-term implications, especially with the increase in raw computing power could be quite staggering.

I think it is theortically possible to map the processes of the brain as a whole, MRI, EEG, etc. The how eludes me though, at this point.

And the fact that computing packs, or seems to be able to pack denser data sets in a silicate/electrical setting on a mass utility basis than the Universe does naturally makes me wonder.

As far as practicality, heh. Maybe that's not my following.

[Skidoo]

Okay. Maybe one knows the energies (wavelengths) and physical components for each part (as arbitrarily defined), but it could be that the whole is not merely an extreme superposition but rather demands entirely new (and unknowable to the brain itself) phenomena.

[MoreGentilythanU]

excellent post metric.

[signal]

[ QUOTE ]
Now some definitions from this point of view: Virtually everyone believes that there is a something which grants our particular set of physical laws reality. If you believe (or assume) that this something has some properties vaguely similar to what we would call consciousness or self-awareness or personality, then you call this something God, and people call you a theist or deist. If you believe (or assume) that this something does not have consciousness or personality associated with it, then I'm not sure what you call it -- maybe just "something" for now, but in any case other people call you an atheist. But my contention is that whatever this "something" is, it is almost certainly not described by physics in the usual sense of the word, though we all believe in "it" in one way or another.


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I don't have much to add to yr post except some disconnected comments. I am, however, interested in all the subjects yr post touched. Just some comments hopefully they will not suck too much.
I quoted the above so as to juxtapose another quote I read from Alan Watts some time ago (paraphrasing):

'If you agree that you are a part of the universe (tautologically defined as reality is all that is real...) then in a sense the universe is aware of itself.'

I understand what you are saying about physical laws... nomology as some say.... what ensures their validity for all time t, are they dynamic, etc

But, I think if we can agree that space is something that can be understood (even by the limited intellect of man) then perhaps time can be understood in a similar manner. That is time could be perceived analogously to a manner in which we as humans can perceive space.

There are other issues which remain and writers are exposing these things as time passes as well. Subjects like qualia, epiphenomenalism, etc, seem to either argue for or against psycho-physical laws... how do these fit into the philosophy of mind too?

But we have to realize the possibility that there is a certain unknowable quadrant that composes the human mind... I ran into this wall when all I thought about was determinism/indeterminism and the other possibilities: i read Kant, Hume, Honderich, Chalmers (and all the writers he has collected on his site), etc and finally I concluded I am either not smart enough or ...

I work in physics these days. I study entangled photons. It seems a reasonable thing to do since we have quite an adversary here.

I think it may be my (our?) fate to live and die in awe.

So I apologize for the disjointed (desultory) post... I will be at foxwoods tomorrow though.

ps I think you are driving at panpsychism type stuff... is this true? Even though I am in the science field I realize it has its limitations so one mustbe careful in its applications.

cordially,
.

[FortunaMaximus]

Intriguing post.

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And the fact that computing packs, or seems to be able to pack denser data sets in a silicate/electrical setting on a mass utility basis than the Universe does naturally makes me wonder.

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Some more thoughts:

Yes, improvising and tinkering by the day. Hourly, even. See, time has a perceptual feel to me I don't see in most humans. Accidental.

Uh, 4 orbits in, I realize mortality's an irrational unprovable. Adults didn't seem to get it. Dumbman trigger myself to forget it, have had 1/2 dozen crunches since then. Clearer, vaster. Causes mental instability.

But solid frame of references now, slowdown triggers. A woman, of course.

Not a tautological, but dualological. Photon entanglement only has validity within a light cone (Universal), um. There's temporal enclosure, and self-imposed limits. Superluminal travel requires negative mass, wormholes, etc.

Realized in the bigger picture, easily provable in a multiconal Universe. Distances between two Universes are immeasurable, as it's a pulsed loop. Get the parameters correct, trigger a superluminal enclosing mass/energy, it'll pull a Jaylene Slide, virtual walls. Zerotime, but there's a rubberband effect that lands you in Universes with same exact parameters to .9999 -> 1.000 -> -1.000 <--- .9999...

The trigger effect occurs and causality is self-saved during the float interval.

Backdraft effects within the original spacetime, ripples in the steady state should cause vacuum ripples and energy imbalances.

Those imbalances should trigger other singularities that are created with same potential conditions for a new Universe. Tose singularities are merely an infinte nut packed in a finite shell with finite light cone/potential for infinity expansion. Note that it is impossible to create a Big Bang singularity without using the whole Universe.

And the set expands. The uncertainities effectively keep the overall cohesiveness of a single Universe in a quantum variant state.

And complexity increases as there are more triggers, denser elements, denser conditions for life, emergent properties of awareness. Noospheric expansion would be a logical causative effect.

It's bigger than God. Even she looks across the shores and wonder what the [censored]'s going on. She's pretty sure she started something, doesn't know what. Doesn't know who woke up first either.

Anyway. As for the misfires, I don't know. Treat information as having the same inviolability as mass/energy.

And information is merely an emergent property of mathematics, a denser, more fluid layer of logic, with positive and negative and zerostate properties.

Still a lot to disentangle, but that's the best I'll allow myself to do tonight. Can't outrun myself again.

Take care,

K.

[John21]

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'If you agree that you are a part of the universe (tautologically defined as reality is all that is real...) then in a sense the universe is aware of itself.'

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Where I run into trouble is trying to conceive of how this could be, without an extra mental dimension or some kind of transcendent quality inherent to awareness/consciousness.

If we define the physical world as ultimately some type of vibration or wave function in space, and conclude that we are aware of this, we could explain this definition casually. But the problem, as I see it, is that what we observe (waves) are what we ultimately observe them with. So whether it's an electron microscope, our eyes or even the neural activity in our brain, the very stuff we observe is the stuff doing the observing.

I'm sure you're aware of all this, but I'm just using the example to highlight the idea of inter-connectedness that must be present, at least on the physical level. From the star through the telescope, into our eyes, and finally the neurons in our brain, it seems there must be an unbroken line of connection. That does well to explain the physical aspect of reality, but the only way for us to actually become aware of it (waves), is if it is aware of itself, i.e. having some quality of self-awareness inherent within itself.

But frankly, I don't see how this could be so. However our ideas of reality are conceived, we ultimately end up referring to the dimensional aspects of it. So no matter how many dimensions we attribute to reality, we end up asking ourselves: if everything is interconnected how can a dimension be aware of itself? With awareness implying some type of self-reference, how could it get out of its own dimension to view itself?

I haven't run across a satisfactory answer to those questions, which leads me to doubt that the properties of awareness are inherent within physical reality. But if we grant awareness as being self-evident and at the same time conclude that awareness isn't a property of physical reality, then where does it come from?

One possible conclusion I've reached is that awareness has a transcendent nature. I use the term transcendent loosely, and it could better be described as transducent. If we can logically separate physical reality from our awareness of it, I think we could begin to define another fundamental interaction. So, akin to the way induction occurs in the electro-magnetic interaction - physical reality induces awareness.

That conclusion has led me to speculate on the possibility of the process being reversed, and asking if awareness can induce physical reality. My conclusion, unlike the transcendentalists, is no. However, it may not require inducing the entire spectrum of reality, only one dimension. And the one dimension I've settled on is time.

It's just speculation of course, but the idea that physical reality induces the aspect of space on mind and the mind induces the aspect of time on space, and concluding that it's a fundamental interaction, seems intriguing to me. But I'm a nut-job.

[Skidoo]

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I quoted the above so as to juxtapose another quote I read from Alan Watts some time ago (paraphrasing):

'If you agree that you are a part of the universe (tautologically defined as reality is all that is real...) then in a sense the universe is aware of itself.'

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If you agree that you are a part of the universe, then a part of the universe is aware of itself.

Metric,

Can the cause of the universe be inferred through measurement within the universe?

[Metric]

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Metric,

Can the cause of the universe be inferred through measurement within the universe?

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That's the million dollar question. I suppose one point of my post is that I don't see any reason to expect the answer to be "yes," if confined to the structure of physics, which merely attempts to build better predictive models of stuff happening within the universe.