Does anyone actually believe in God or are they just afraid...

[jem]

Are you calling the standard model of physics simply a statistical case?

The standard model was used to predict where you would find the higgs boson.
Thats not really just statistics, that is an amazingly complex but working model of the universe.

did you even review the videos I posted.... wtf... why are just making shit up because it offends your ideas.
Watch the two susskind videos and get back to me.

you are not really ready for this until you understand the standard model uses about 20 constants tuned to 32 decimal places.

That is in itself incredible fine tuning.

Jem, Susskind is saying just the opposite of what you think he is saying. He is making a statistical case, merely a conjecture, for the existence of physical laws that "seem" special in an unexpected way; hence for the existence of life in the Universe. You have heard only what you want to hear and misconstrued his remarks to offer support for that silly concept known to Christians as "intelligent design".

Susskind himself is an atheist. He'd be a most unlikely source of support for the Christian concept of "Intelligent Design".

 

[jem]

did you read this piezoe

this one is beautiful.


http://geraldschroeder.com/wordpress/?page_id=49

The Fine Tuning of the Universe
According to growing numbers of scientists, the laws and constants of nature are so “finely-tuned,” and so many “coincidences” have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence.

In fact, this “fine-tuning” is so pronounced, and the “coincidences” are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse The Anthropic Principle, which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind. Even those who do not accept The Anthropic Principle admit to the “fine-tuning” and conclude that the universe is “too contrived” to be a chance event.

In a BBC science documentary, “The Anthropic Principle,” some of the greatest scientific minds of our day describe the recent findings which compel this conclusion.

Dr. Dennis Scania, the distinguished head of Cambridge University Observatories:

If you change a little bit the laws of nature, or you change a little bit the constants of nature — like the charge on the electron — then the way the universe develops is so changed, it is very likely that intelligent life would not have been able to develop.

Dr. David D. Deutsch, Institute of Mathematics, Oxford University:

If we nudge one of these constants just a few percent in one direction, stars burn out within a million years of their formation, and there is no time for evolution. If we nudge it a few percent in the other direction, then no elements heavier than helium form. No carbon, no life. Not even any chemistry. No complexity at all.

Dr. Paul Davies, noted author and professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University:

“The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural ‘constants’ were off even slightly. You see,” Davies adds, “even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life — almost contrived — you might say a ‘put-up job’.”

According to the latest scientific thinking, the matter of the universe originated in a huge explosion of energy called “The Big Bang.” At first, the universe was only hydrogen and helium, which congealed into stars. Subsequently, all the other elements were manufactured inside the stars. The four most abundant elements in the universe are: hydrogen, helium, oxygen and carbon.

When Sir Fred Hoyle was researching how carbon came to be, in the “blast-furnaces” of the stars, his calculations indicated that it is very difficult to explain how the stars generated the necessary quantity of carbon upon which life on earth depends. Hoyle found that there were numerous “fortunate” one-time occurrences which seemed to indicate that purposeful “adjustments” had been made in the laws of physics and chemistry in order to produce the necessary carbon.

Hoyle sums up his findings as follows:

A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintendent has monkeyed with the physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. Adds Dr. David D. Deutch: If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features ARE surprising and unlikely.

UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE OF FINE TUNING
Besides the BBC video, the scientific establishment’s most prestigious journals, and its most famous physicists and cosmologists, have all gone on record as recognizing the objective truth of the fine-tuning. The August ’97 issue of “Science” (the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the United States) featured an article entitled “Science and God: A Warming Trend?” Here is an excerpt:

The fact that the universe exhibits many features that foster organic life — such as precisely those physical constants that result in planets and long-lived stars — also has led some scientists to speculate that some divine influence may be present.

In his best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time”, Stephen Hawking (perhaps the world’s most famous cosmologist) refers to the phenomenon as “remarkable.”

The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life”. “For example,” Hawking writes, “if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

Hawking then goes on to say that he can appreciate taking this as possible evidence of “a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)” (ibid. p. 125).

Dr. Gerald Schroeder, author of “Genesis and the Big Bang” and “The Science of Life” was formerly with the M.I.T. physics department. He adds the following examples:

Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal “Scientific American”, reflects on:
how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.

Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg’s wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:

One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning — The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.

This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not:

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000,

but instead:

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001,

there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:

the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.

Michael Turner, the widely quoted astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab, describes the fine-tuning of the universe with a simile:
The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bulls eye one millimeter in diameter on the other side.

Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, discovers that the likelihood of the universe having usable energy (low entropy) at the creation is even more astounding,
namely, an accuracy of one part out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in our ordinary denary (power of ten) notation: it would be one followed by ten to the power of 123 successive zeros! (That is a million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeros.)

Penrose continues,

Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe — and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure — we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. The precision needed to set the universe on its course is to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations (Newton’s, Maxwell’s, Einstein’s) which govern the behavior of things from moment to moment.

Cosmologists debate whether the space-time continuum is finite or infinite, bounded or unbounded. In all scenarios, the fine-tuning remains the same.

It is appropriate to complete this section on “fine tuning” with the eloquent words of Professor John Wheeler:

To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple IDEA. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, and so inevitable, so beautiful, we will all say to each other, “How could it have ever been otherwise?”

 

[Trader666]

A smartest guy in the world says.....

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." Stephen Hawking.

Hawking also thought the universe would collapse, time would run in reverse, and people would die before they were born.

could be God is not science based

Could be God is. Which would make more sense than the universe conjuring itself into existence from nothing.

 

[jem]

this is the math and the science of penrose's - 10 to 10 to the 123.
there is no issue with understand probability here.


(from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 copyright 1989, Penguin Books)

How special was the big bang?

Let us try to understand just how much of a constraint a condition such as WEYL
= 0 at the big bang was. For simplicity (as with the above discussion) we shall
suppose that the universe is closed. In order to be able to work out some clear-cut
figures, we shall assume, furthermore, that the number B of baryons-that is, the
number of protons and neutrons, taken together-in the universe is roughly given by

B = 10^80.

(There is no particular reason for this figure, apart from the fact that,
observationally B must be at least as large as this; Eddington once claimed to have
calculated B exactly, obtaining a figure which was close to the above value!
No-one seems to believe this particular calculation any more, but the value 10^80
appears to have stuck.) If B were taken to be larger than this (and perhaps, in actual
fact, B = infinity) then the figures that we would obtain would be even more
striking than the extraordinary figures that we shall be arriving at in a minute!
Try to imagine the phase space (cf. p. 177) of the entire universe! Each point in
this phase space represents a different possible way that the universe might have
started off. We are to picture the Creator, armed with a `pin' which is to be placed
at some point in the phase space (Fig. 7.19 not shown). Each different positioning of
the pin provides a different universe. Now the accuracy that is needed for the Creator's
aim depends upon the entropy of the universe that is thereby created. It would be
relatively `easy' to produce a high entropy universe, since then there would be a
large volume of the phase space available for the pin to hit. (Recall that the entropy
is proportional to the logarithm of the volume of the phase space concerned.) But
in order to start off the universe in state of low entropy-so that there will indeed be
a second law of thermodynamics-the Creator must aim for a much tinier volume of
the phase space. How tiny would this region be, in order that a universe closely
resembling the one in which we actually live would be the result? In order to
answer this question, we must first turn to a very remarkable formula, due to Jacob
Bekenstein (1972) and Stephen Hawking (1975), which tells us what the entropy
of a black hole must be.

Consider a black hole, and suppose that its horizon's surface area is A. The
Bekenstein-Hawking formula for the black hole's entropy is the:

Sbh = A/4 + (kc^3 / Gh)

where k is Boltzmann's constant, c is the speed of light, G is Newton's gravitational
constant, and h is Planck's constant over 2pi. The essential part of this formula is the
A/4. The part in parentheses merely consists of the appropriate physical constants.
Thus, the entropy of a black hole is proportional to its surface area. For a
spherically symmetrical black hole, this surface area turns out to be proportional to
the square of the mass of the hole

A = m^2 x 8pi(G^2/c^4).

Putting this together with the Bekenstein-Hawking formula, we find that the
entropy of a black hole is proportional to the square of its mass:

Sbh = m^2 x 2pi (kG/hc)

Thus, the entropy per unit mass of a black hole is proportional to its mass, and so
gets larger and larger for larger and larger black holes. Hence, for a given amount
of mass-or equivalently, by Einstein's E = mc^2, for a given amount of energy-the
greatest entropy is achieved when the material has all collapsed into a black hole!
Moreover, two black holes gain (enormously) in entropy when they mutually
swallow one another up to produce a single united black hole! Large black holes,
such as those likely to be found in galactic centres, will provide absolutely
stupendous amounts of entropy-far and away larger than the other kinds of entropy
that one encounters in other types of physical situation.
There is actually a slight qualification needed to the statement that the greatest
entropy is achieved when all the mass is concentrated in a black hole. Hawking's
analysis of the thermodynamics of black holes, shows that there should be a
non-zero temperature also associated with a black hole. One implication of this is
that not quite all of the mass-energy can be contained within the black hole, in the
maximum entropy state, the maximum entropy being achieved by a black hole in
equilibrium with a `thermal bath of radiation'. The temperature of this radiation is
very tiny indeed for a black hole of any reasonable size. For example, for a black
hole of a solar mass, this temperature would be about 10^-7 K, which is somewhat
smaller than the lowest temperature that has been measured in any laboratory to
date, and very considerably lower than the 2.7 K temperature of intergalactic space.
For larger black holes, the Hawking temperature is even lower!
The Hawking temperature would become significant for our discussion only if
either: (i) much tinier black holes, referred to as mini-black holes, might exist in our
universe; or (ii) the universe does not recollapse before the Hawking evaporation
time-the time according to which the black hole would evaporate away completely.
With regard to (i), mini-black holes could only be produced in a suitably chaotic big
bang. Such mini-black holes cannot be very numerous in our actual universe, or
else their effects would have already been observed; moreover, according to the
viewpoint that I am expounding here, they ought to be absent altogether. As regards
(ii), for a solar-mass black hole, the Hawking evaporation time would be some
10^54 times the present age of the universe, and for larger black holes, it would be
considerably longer. It does not seem that these effects should substantially modify
the above arguments.
To get some feeling for the hugeness of black-hole entropy, let us consider what
was previously thought to supply the largest contribution to the entropy of the
universe, namely the 2.7 K black-body background radiation. Astrophysicists had
been struck by the enormous amounts of entropy that this radiation contains, which
is far in excess of the ordinary entropy figures that one encounters in other
processes (e.g. in the sun). The background radiation entropy is something like
10^8 for every baryon (where I am now choosing `natural units', so that
Boltzmann's constant, is unity). (In effect, this means that there are 10^8 photons in
the background radiation for every baryon.) Thus, with 10^88 baryons in all, we
should have a total entropy of

10^88

 

[jem]

continued....

or the entropy in the background radiation in the universe.
Indeed, were it not for the black holes, this figure would represent the total
entropy of the universe, since the entropy in the background radiation swamps that
in all other ordinary processes. The entropy per baryon in the sun, for example, is of
order unity. On the other hand, by black-hole standards, the background radiation
entropy is utter `chicken feed'. For the Bekenstein-Hawking formula tells us that the
entropy per baryon in a solar mass black hole is about 10^20, in natural units, so
had the universe consisted entirely of solar mass black holes, the total figure would
have been very much larger than that given above, namely

10^100.

Of course, the universe is not so constructed, but this figure begins to tell us how
`small' the entropy in the background radiation must be considered to be when the
relentless effects of gravity begin to be taken into account.
Let us try to be a little more realistic. Rather than populating our galaxies
entirely with black holes, let us take them to consist mainly of ordinary stars-some
10^11 of them-and each to have a million (i.e. 10^6) solar-mass black-hole at its
core (as might be reasonable for our own Milky Way galaxy). Calculation shows
that the entropy per baryon would now be actually somewhat larger even than the
previous huge figure, namely now 10^21, giving a total entropy, in natural units, of

10^101.

We may anticipate that, after a very long time, a major fraction of the galaxies'
masses will be incorporated into the black holes at their centres. When this
happens, the entropy per baryon will be 10^31, giving a monstrous total of

10^111.

However, we are considering a closed universe so eventually it should recollapse;
and it is not unreasonable to estimate the entropy of the final crunch by using the
Bekenstein-Hawking formula as though the whole universe had formed a black
hole. This gives an entropy per baryon of 10^43, and the absolutely stupendous
total, for the entire big crunch would be

10^123.

This figure will give us an estimate of the total phase-space volume V available
to the Creator, since this entropy should represent the logarithm of the volume of
the (easily) largest compartment. Since 10^123 is the logarithm of the volume, the
volume must be the exponential of 10^123, i.e.

V = 10^10^123.

in natural units! (Some perceptive readers may feel that I should have used the
figure e^10^123, but for numbers of this size, the a and the 10 are essentially
interchangeable!) How big was the original phase-space volume W that the Creator
had to aim for in order to provide a universe compatible with the second law of
thermodynamics and with what we now observe? It does not much matter whether
we take the value
W = 10^10^101 or W = 10^10^88
given by the galactic black holes or by the background radiation, respectively, or a
much smaller (and, in fact, more appropriate) figure which would have been the
actual figure at the big bang. Either way, the ratio of V to W will be, closely

V/W = 10^10^123.

This now tells us how precise the Creator's aim must have been: namely to an
accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.



there more --- where I pasted this on a previous thread.

 

[piezoe]

I should clarify before the flame throwers get heated up, that Einstein said on at least one occasion that he was not an atheist. And yet when asked if he believed in God, or a God, he steadfastly refused to give a simple straight forward answer. He had much to say about religion and the concept of God, or better put, "concepts of God," and he used the word God as a figure of speech on many occasions. Yet, when one reads what he actually wrote and said, there can be no doubt that he was, in fact, an atheist.

 

[stu]

there more --- where I pasted this on a previous thread.

There always is more, that's all you do. Paste and troll to draw faulty conclusions which you never address. This is where you paste and troll, troll and paste.

 

[Lucrum]

I should clarify before the flame throwers get heated up, that Einstein said on at least one occasion that he was not an atheist. And yet when asked if he believed in God, or a God, he steadfastly refused to give a simple straight forward answer. He had much to say about religion and the concept of God, or better put, "concepts of God," and he used the word God as a figure of speech on many occasions. Yet, when one reads what he actually wrote and said, there can be no doubt that he was, in fact, an atheist.

You might want to tell him. Since he emphatically stated on more than one occasion that he was NOT an atheist.

Or maybe you're implying Einstein didn't know the difference?

 

[bigarrow]

You might want to tell him. Since he emphatically stated on more than one occasion that he was NOT an atheist.

Or maybe you're implying Einstein didn't know the difference?

He was being politically correct just as some of the founding fathers were. And just as many do now in life just to get along with the radical judgemental Christians in America. The churches are packed with people who no more believe the living inside a fish story than they do the moon is made of cheese story.

 

[Lucrum]

He was being politically correct...

In the early to mid 20th century? Einstein tell you that himself did he?