Posted: Aug 14, 2010 7:31 am
AMR wrote:Meanwhile, this is what apparently passes as acceptable dialogue in this forum; hackenslash please keep your personal pastimes and hobbies out of the debate, speaking for myself at least, I have no interest.
Awww, did the nasty atheist offend you? Diddums! Tell somebody who gives a fuck.
BTW, How do you know without making any observations? It would be by definition unempirical and unscientific speculation or interpretation hence my reference to a verity of published opinion on the subject; And I know you continue to be hung up on a fairly obvious misapprehension (or perhaps you feign ignorance) of that quote I cited, in which "fundamental property of the universe" simply means the observer cannot help interacting with any observed system. You seem to think it is the "blur" itself that is fundamental to the universe. No! the blur results from the physical act of observation.
Oh, my. That's not what the statement means at all. It means that the uncertainty principle is always in operation. It is yourself that is hung up on a misapprehension, namely that the uncertainty principle requires an observer. Only one specific feature of the uncertainty principle requires observation, and this has been pointed out to you countless times now. That you are simply ignoring that and restating your ignorant drivel is by far the greater discoursive offence here. As far as can be ascertained, a particle doesn't actually possess either a position or a velocity until the wavefunction is collapsed.
The causality clause in my definition is to distinguish this physical universe, which may well extend beyond both visible and particle horizons and encompass all that Max Tegmark defines as a level 1 universe, should it even be infinite in extent.
Your definition is rejected, for reasons already stated. In reality, the causal mechanism behind the big bang is not known, but your definition discards it. This isn't even about that portion of that which arose from the big bang that isn't visible to us due to expansion, but that which lies outside our cosmic expansion. Your definition dismisses any causal relationships in that regard, which is foolish in the extreme.
If you posit a universe that had no begining, and you presumably accept the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, then you must accept a past universe of an ever increasingly higher ordered state extending backwards in time, forever. It is hard to imagine, given such ever mounting complexity, that the material of the universe wouldn't eventually at some point encompass something along the lines of the cosmic mind envisioned by Tipler.
My counter to Dawkins' so-called "747 Gambit" is that Dawkins submits that a less random or more complex state is rarer than a less complex or more random state. Entropy is a measure of randomness. However, if entropy of a system can only increase with time, can never be decreased, whatever force which gave rise to the universe must have had an even lower state of entropy; meaning even more rare or improbable state. In other words Dawkins logic goes nowhere towards resolving the cosmic origin question. Both theist and atheist must acknowledge a higher order or even less probable state of affairs. This even renders speculated multi-verses irrelevant. However big the meta-verse is, it is a physical system which according to the 2nd Law could only have arisen from an even higher state of order.
Oh, dear. He thinks entropy is disorder, and purports to be in a position to teach us about physics. Back to school for you, son.