Could there be a God?

[Aethelwulf]

When someone says the word ''God'' most people think of divine, omnipotent, omnipresent and all-knowing entities. There are some problems with an all-knowing entity, such as the Uncertainty Principle.

 

If a God truly exists, he must abide by the rules of quantum mechanics. If he didn't it surely would cause a tremendous discharge of energy from each and every particle in the universe due to [math]\Delta E \Delta t[/math]. There is one reason why (a) God cannot be outside of the rules of quantum physics, assuming that relativity has any universal truth or precedence. Since nothing exists outside of the universe, we must assume God is contained within his own creation - indeed, assuming he even created the universe. A possibility of such an entity would be that they were created inside of the bubble of the universe, entwined if you like in a ''creation'' which he (or indeed she) had no control over.

 

Many people have traditional views of God today, mostly evolved from scriptures and ancient proverbs - but these have been adapted by men on Earth who have created these views to suit their doctrine and way of thoughts and systematic beliefs and foibles. What does seem certain, if a God does exist and are so superior, beyond the intellect of man, it is doubtful he or she would even find us interesting. Indeed, the God of Einstein was Spinoza's God, a God who does not care for the doings of mankind.

 

This is likely, the kind of God we can deal with in physics, or any kind of understanding of any physical kind of science. God is not outside of science, so long as you realize that God must be ignorant of many physical qualities that we often think he is superior for.

 

So what is ''God'' if not something we associate to scripture?

 

God in my eyes, should be ''something'' which has as quantum nature about it. Usually in quantum mechanics, to encode the information about a particular system, we consider a ''State Function'' often denoted with a [math]\Psi[/math] ''a capitol Psi''. The is the wave function which describes if you like, all the information of a system, which could be from a particle to the entire universe. The problem however, is, just like a particle you can only know [math]\frac{1}{2}[/math] of any attribute of a particle system. You may know for instance, with almost correct parameters the position of a particle, but doing so would result in an amazing uncertainty inherent in its momentum/trajectory.

 

The wave function therefore itself, or rather, the state function cannot ever really be known completely unless we where talking about systems which was ''macroscopic'' because such systems are devoid of quantum effects (not entirely, but enough) to be ignored. A position of Schrodinger's cat is not smeared over space for instance. So in it's full form, is the universe a victim of quantum effects? It is after all, something large and can be modeled as a macroscopic system?

 

Well, most of the universe is made up of about 99% space. The rest of it exists as tangible ''existing out there'' matter, the kind that our most functional telescopes can hone in on and take pictures of. The rest of space is made up of ghostly matter which appears to be smeared over all spacetime. Some of it in the form of radiation, others will be smeared over spacetime as particles or other types of matter resonating from other distant galaxies. And even, some of this matter might actually turn up in different parts of space which a most recent experiment has shown (citations can be given if asked for).

 

I have even speculated within myself whether anamolous gravitational effects show up in the universe because the matter in the universe turn up in places they shouldn't according to this experiment, and thus, adding a reason why we pick up gravitational distortions where they should not be present.

 

God could even be some kind of ''supercomputer'' who is located in the future sending signals back in the form of (what I will call) Cramer Waves. Cramers delayed choice experiment has shown that actions in the future can in fact alter present conditions we see today. In relativity, we have no such thing as a ''true past'' or even a ''true future''. So maybe God is really some kind of machine in our future horizon which creates the world we see around us today, (which would mean ultimately) that things we do and observe in the present is really shaping the world in the past, when the universe was young and ripe.

Edited June 26, 2012 by Aethelwulf

[iNow]

Sure, there "could" be a god. There "could" also be microscopic garden gnomes living in your armpits and singing songs accompanied by tiny fiddles.

[Aethelwulf]

Sure, there "could" be a god. There "could" also be microscopic garden gnomes living in your armpits and singing songs accompanied by tiny fiddles.

 

Doubtful there is even a micro-microscopic fiddling set of smurfs who show up every sunday. I am talking about physics here... not the stuff of fantasy... the kind of theory.

 

This isn't about stories you hear at bedtime.... The world is far more complicated and ultimately unknown to knowingly think there is not some superior being existent. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge would know this... Einstein did. Enough said.

Edited June 26, 2012 by Aethelwulf

[Greg H.]

The world is far more complicated an ultimately unknown to knowingly think there is not some superior being existent.

 

So if I understand what you're saying, it's basically that "Things are so complex, that there must be some being (supernatural or not) equally as complex to explain why it's so complex."

 

This is exactly the part of these kinds of discussions I have a problem with. Why do we have to invoke the presence of some superior being just because something looks 'too complicated'? I'm not saying there is, or there is not, but why do we have to assume it's true just because there are things we don't yet understand?

 

(And if I am misunderstanding your point, please don't hesitate to let me know.)

[Aethelwulf]

I believe what I am saying, is that physics is an evidence of the natural world, an evidence which is a world we do not know really know the physical world about. The world is so complicated, even the earliest scientists knew that physics yielded a great deal of unknowns that reality truly is a mystery. If a god is responsible, there is plenty room for it, (him or she).

Edited June 26, 2012 by Aethelwulf

[iNow]

Doubtful there is even a micro-microscopic fiddling set of smurfs who show up every sunday. I am talking about physics here... not the stuff of fantasy... the kind of theory.

 

This isn't about stories you hear at bedtime.... The world is far more complicated and ultimately unknown to knowingly think there is not some superior being existent. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge would know this... Einstein did. Enough said.

What specifically are you suggesting Einstein knew? As a follow-up to that request for clarification, how is that remotely relevant?

[zapatos]

If a God truly exists, he must abide by the rules of quantum mechanics.

It is not very 'scientific' to make a claim without evidence.

[Aethelwulf]

What am I suggesting he knew?

 

If you knew an INCH of science, you wouldn't ask.

 

It is not very 'scientific' to make a claim without evidence.

 

Who here has made claims out of science... start making some to challenge me.

 

Look, you guys may have a problem with life and the idea of a God, but life is not without such a conception in the idea of something beyond you.

Edited June 26, 2012 by Aethelwulf

[A Tripolation]

Funny how you demand that this "God" adhere to quantum mechanics when we know that quantum is wrong.

[dimreepr]

Who here has made claims out of science... start making some to challenge me.

 

 

Ok, I claim there is no god and challenge you to prove me wrong.

 

Edit/ If you want a scientific argument try claiming something scientifically arguable.

 

 

Edited June 26, 2012 by dimreepr

[ecoli]

Sure, there "could" be a god. There "could" also be microscopic garden gnomes living in your armpits and singing songs accompanied by tiny fiddles.

Or to be symbolic about it:

p(lawn gnomes) ≈ 0. slightly above 0 is "could" but still pretty much zero.

[Aethelwulf]

Funny how you demand that this "God" adhere to quantum mechanics when we know that quantum is wrong.

 

 

Really??

 

How Ironic of anyone... No one knows Quantum mechanics.

 

 

 

It is not very 'scientific' to make a claim without evidence.

 

Science is pretty much built up on theories.

 

What specifically are you suggesting Einstein knew? As a follow-up to that request for clarification, how is that remotely relevant?

 

Anything he did know, you certainly don't. How about that?

[iNow]

Anything he did know, you certainly don't. How about that?

I wonder... Are you unable to answer my question, or unwilling?

[Aethelwulf]

I wonder... Are you unable to answer my question, or unwilling?

 

Einstein was suggesting much more than what you could easily comprehend with a God. Easily, it seems obvious, you don't realize what a God could be, or one that even fitted the works of one of our greatest scientists.

 

In that kind of understanding, you may as well be a reject in in his eyes?

 

After this, I simply expect you to be angry. Because it is the truth.

[doG]

IMO it's a pointless question. Unless someone can prove that there could not be a god then the default answer is, "sure, a god is possible". We could of course follow this with an infinite number of other pointless questions, i.e., Could there be unicorns?, Could there be leprechuans?, Could there be wormholes?, Could there be Raleians?, etc. and so on forever. Sure, anything is possible. Why bother?

[Aethelwulf]

IMO it's a pointless question. Unless someone can prove that there could not be a god then the default answer is, "sure, a god is possible". We could of course follow this with an infinite number of other pointless questions, i.e., Could there be unicorns?, Could there be leprechuans?, Could there be wormholes?, Could there be Raleians?, etc. and so on forever. Sure, anything is possible. Why bother?

 

It's definately not a pointless question... especially when one comes to realize that no such question has a real answer. Such a question cannot be outside of science either.

 

the kind of science we often deal with, is the sciences we can measure. In respect of this, there very well could be something, intelligent beyond us that we cannot fathom or measure.

[doG]

It's definately not a pointless question...

Only to the gnostic. Since agnostics believe we could never really know the truth it is a pointless question to them. Since I am agnostic I believe it is pointless.

[Aethelwulf]

Only to the gnostic. Since agnostics believe we could never really know the truth it is a pointless question to them. Since I am agnostic I believe it is pointless.

 

Rubbish. Scientists don't know the truth to any theory they present so are they automatically agnostics?

 

If they are... give up on science. Agnostic to you is enough to ''give up'' on real investigative science.

 

Science should be any topic that could be real... theory is such a topic.If science cannot disprove it then science's outlook is incomplete. God is not some mystical fairy at the end of the garden. It is only one question that science has not answered.

 

Unable to answer as of yet.

[doG]

Rubbish. Scientists don't know the truth to any theory they present so are they automatically agnostics?

Knowing or not knowing the truth is not what makes one agnostic, believing the truth is unknowable is what makes one agnostic.

 

Agnostic to you is enough to ''give up'' on real investigative science.

Rubbish. Real investigative science and skepticism are the reason I believe questions like, "could there be a god?" are pointless.

[iNow]

Einstein was suggesting much more than what you could easily comprehend with a God. Easily, it seems obvious, you don't realize what a God could be, or one that even fitted the works of one of our greatest scientists.

 

In that kind of understanding, you may as well be a reject in in his eyes?

 

After this, I simply expect you to be angry. Because it is the truth.

I'm frustrated that you're being so unnecessarily evasive and petulant, but I'm hardly angry.

 

I knew up front what you likely meant when referencing Einstein. You're not the first, nor will you be the last to reference his comments in some vain attempt to support your personally preferred fairy tale. I was merely waiting for you to confirm what you meant before I stepped in to illuminate the issue more robustly for you.

 

Below is a nice nugget on which you can chew... In the meantime, please cease and desist from making any further assumptions about me and the countless others here about whom you know essentially nothing. Thanks.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_views

 

In a 1930 New York Times article, Einstein distinguished three human impulses which develop religious belief: fear, social morality, and a cosmic religious feeling. A primitive understanding of causality causes fear, and the fearful invent supernatural beings analogous to themselves. The desire for love and support create a social and moral need for a supreme being; both these styles have an anthropomorphic concept of God. The third style, which Einstein deemed most mature, originates in a deep sense of awe and mystery. He said, the individual feels "the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves in nature ... and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole." Einstein saw science as an antagonist of the first two styles of religious belief, but as a partner in the third. He maintained, "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" as aspirations for truth derive from the religious sphere. For Einstein, "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." He continued:

a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this superpersonal content ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be...

An understanding of causality was fundamental to Einstein's ethical beliefs. In Einstein's view, "the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science," for religion can always take refuge in areas that science can not yet explain. It was Einstein's belief that in the "struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope" and cultivate the "Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself."

 

I return now to my outstanding question... How are Einstein's beliefs or thoughts in any way relevant to the possible existence of some ill-defined three letter word you happen to call god?

[Greg H.]

Rubbish. Scientists don't know the truth to any theory they present so are they automatically agnostics?

 

If they are... give up on science. Agnostic to you is enough to ''give up'' on real investigative science.

 

Science should be any topic that could be real... theory is such a topic.If science cannot disprove it then science's outlook is incomplete. God is not some mystical fairy at the end of the garden. It is only one question that science has not answered.

 

Unable to answer as of yet.

 

As agnosticism is a religious point of view and not a scientific one, it's hardly applicable. Nice straw man though.

 

And a scientific theory needs to be testable. How did you plan on testing for the existence of God, exactly?

[Aethelwulf]

I'm frustrated that you're being so unnecessarily evasive and petulant, but I'm hardly angry.

 

I knew up front what you likely meant when referencing Einstein. You're not the first, nor will you be the last to reference his comments in some vain attempt to support your personally preferred fairy tale. I was merely waiting for you to confirm what you meant before I stepped in to illuminate the issue more robustly for you.

 

Below is a nice nugget on which you can chew... In the meantime, please cease and desist from making any further assumptions about me and the countless others here about whom you know essentially nothing. Thanks.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia....religious_views

 

 

 

I return now to my outstanding question... How are Einstein's beliefs or thoughts in any way relevant to the possible existence of some ill-defined three letter word you happen to call god?

 

To be frank, I find some of the users quite arrogant here - a bit up themselves, so much so, idea's they think is out their league they should not entertain. Why should God be a fairy tale?

 

I deal in real science. Science is about possibilities. Not once in science should one say anything is for certain and nowhere in these posts have I entertained the idea that a God is certain. What I have said and will continue to say, God is a possibility - one you guys as real scientists need to wake up to...

 

 

 

 

 

[iNow]

Most of us concur that the god(s) are possible. They are just so extremely improbable as to be effectively treated as nonexistent in practical terms. What's the problem, exactly? Why have you resorted to calling people arrogant already? There's truly no need to make things personal with those criticizing your points. I recommend that you try instead supporting your points more effectively with logic, reason, and evidence if you hope to change their minds and earn their respect and/or acceptance.

Edited June 27, 2012 by iNow

[Aethelwulf]

Most of us concur that the god(s) are possibilities. They are just so extremely improbably as to be treated as nonexistent in practical terms. What's the problem, exactly? No need to make things personal with those criticizing your points. Try instead supporting your points more effectively with logic, reason, and evidence.

 

Why are they extremely improbable?

 

Many might concur the fact we are even sitting here, at our computers, writing the things we write, extremely improbable. But here we are?

[iNow]

I say they are improbable due to the complete lack of adequate evidence that scales appropriately with the extraordinary nature of the claim.