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Richard Dawkins, Famed Atheist, Supports Free Bibles In Schools
- Thread starter Free Thinker
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QUESTION: Over the past decade, many physicists have been making an association between their science and "the mind of God". What do you think of this association being made?
MR. WEINBERG: It makes me nervous when physicists use the word "God" loosely, as talking about the laws of nature as the mind of God, or even Einstein's famous remarks about God playing dice with the cosmos. I think mostly they're just using the word "God" in the metaphorical sense.
By "God" most of them simply mean the laws of nature, the principles that govern everything. And, well, there's nothing wrong with the metaphor, I suppose, but the word "God" is charged with so much meaning, it carries so much historical freight, and I think one ought to be careful about how one uses it.
QUESTION: Why do you think so many physicists in recent years have made such an association?
MR. WEINBERG: It is true that this use of the word "God," this metaphorical use of the word "God" comes naturally to physicists. Theologian Paul Tellich said once that he thought that physicists were the only scientists that found it comfortable to talk about God.
The aim of physics, or at least one branch of physics, is after all to find the principles that explain the principles that explain the principles that explain everything we see in nature, to find the ultimate rational basis of the universe. And that gets fairly close in some respects to what people have associated with the word "God." But I think it is still very different. And I wouldn't refer to the laws of nature as the mind of God, or call anything discovered by physicists the âGod thisâ or the âGod thatâ. It's a word that has a lot of punch to it.
QUESTION: There are people who say that the very particularity of the laws of physics means these laws are "fine tuned" to allow for the possibility of life evolving. They interpret this in a religious sense as meaning that the universe was in some sense designed to produce life.
MR. WEINBERG: I don't see any clear evidence that the laws of nature or the constants of nature as we know them are fine tuned to allow life. I mean, certainly the laws of nature do allow life. But I don't see anything clearly in them that looks like a spectacular coincidence. I'm not convinced by any of those arguments.
There are some things that are quite mysterious in our understanding of nature as we know it now. There is a constant called the "cosmological constant", which if I didn't know anything I would make an estimate of what its magnitude would be just on the basis of guess work from what I know about the laws of nature. The correct value is less than that estimated value by something like 120 orders of magnitude. That looks like some kind of fine tuning. And we don't know. It may be that that number is simply zero, and it's zero for some fundamental reason that we will discover. And so it isn't fine tuned. It's also possible that the universe is bigger and more complicated than we had thought, and that what we call the universe, is just part of the universe, and that what we call the laws of nature differ from one part to another, and that we are living in a part of the universe where what we call the laws of nature, including the value of this constant, allow life to appear. In that case we wouldn't imagine that any supernatural agency fine tuned the laws and constants to make us possible, any more that we imagine that a supernatural agency arranged that the Earth had a temperature which allows life. Out there, there are doubtless millions of planets in the galaxy, and we live on one that allows life. That doesn't imply to me that it has been specially arranged to allow life.
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-frame.html
There are however one or two scientists, maybe twenty, who think the universe is fine-tuned by "God" . I'm sure.
MR. WEINBERG: It makes me nervous when physicists use the word "God" loosely, as talking about the laws of nature as the mind of God, or even Einstein's famous remarks about God playing dice with the cosmos. I think mostly they're just using the word "God" in the metaphorical sense.
By "God" most of them simply mean the laws of nature, the principles that govern everything. And, well, there's nothing wrong with the metaphor, I suppose, but the word "God" is charged with so much meaning, it carries so much historical freight, and I think one ought to be careful about how one uses it.
QUESTION: Why do you think so many physicists in recent years have made such an association?
MR. WEINBERG: It is true that this use of the word "God," this metaphorical use of the word "God" comes naturally to physicists. Theologian Paul Tellich said once that he thought that physicists were the only scientists that found it comfortable to talk about God.
The aim of physics, or at least one branch of physics, is after all to find the principles that explain the principles that explain the principles that explain everything we see in nature, to find the ultimate rational basis of the universe. And that gets fairly close in some respects to what people have associated with the word "God." But I think it is still very different. And I wouldn't refer to the laws of nature as the mind of God, or call anything discovered by physicists the âGod thisâ or the âGod thatâ. It's a word that has a lot of punch to it.
QUESTION: There are people who say that the very particularity of the laws of physics means these laws are "fine tuned" to allow for the possibility of life evolving. They interpret this in a religious sense as meaning that the universe was in some sense designed to produce life.
MR. WEINBERG: I don't see any clear evidence that the laws of nature or the constants of nature as we know them are fine tuned to allow life. I mean, certainly the laws of nature do allow life. But I don't see anything clearly in them that looks like a spectacular coincidence. I'm not convinced by any of those arguments.
There are some things that are quite mysterious in our understanding of nature as we know it now. There is a constant called the "cosmological constant", which if I didn't know anything I would make an estimate of what its magnitude would be just on the basis of guess work from what I know about the laws of nature. The correct value is less than that estimated value by something like 120 orders of magnitude. That looks like some kind of fine tuning. And we don't know. It may be that that number is simply zero, and it's zero for some fundamental reason that we will discover. And so it isn't fine tuned. It's also possible that the universe is bigger and more complicated than we had thought, and that what we call the universe, is just part of the universe, and that what we call the laws of nature differ from one part to another, and that we are living in a part of the universe where what we call the laws of nature, including the value of this constant, allow life to appear. In that case we wouldn't imagine that any supernatural agency fine tuned the laws and constants to make us possible, any more that we imagine that a supernatural agency arranged that the Earth had a temperature which allows life. Out there, there are doubtless millions of planets in the galaxy, and we live on one that allows life. That doesn't imply to me that it has been specially arranged to allow life.
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-frame.html
There are however one or two scientists, maybe twenty, who think the universe is fine-tuned by "God" . I'm sure.
Quote from futurecurrents:
QUESTION: Over the past decade, many physicists have been making an association between their science and "the mind of God". What do you think of this association being made?
MR. WEINBERG: It makes me nervous when physicists use the word "God" loosely, as talking about the laws of nature as the mind of God, or even Einstein's famous remarks about God playing dice with the cosmos. I think mostly they're just using the word "God" in the metaphorical sense.
By "God" most of them simply mean the laws of nature, the principles that govern everything. And, well, there's nothing wrong with the metaphor, I suppose, but the word "God" is charged with so much meaning, it carries so much historical freight, and I think one ought to be careful about how one uses it.
QUESTION: Why do you think so many physicists in recent years have made such an association?
MR. WEINBERG: It is true that this use of the word "God," this metaphorical use of the word "God" comes naturally to physicists. Theologian Paul Tellich said once that he thought that physicists were the only scientists that found it comfortable to talk about God.
The aim of physics, or at least one branch of physics, is after all to find the principles that explain the principles that explain the principles that explain everything we see in nature, to find the ultimate rational basis of the universe. And that gets fairly close in some respects to what people have associated with the word "God." But I think it is still very different. And I wouldn't refer to the laws of nature as the mind of God, or call anything discovered by physicists the âGod thisâ or the âGod thatâ. It's a word that has a lot of punch to it.
QUESTION: There are people who say that the very particularity of the laws of physics means these laws are "fine tuned" to allow for the possibility of life evolving. They interpret this in a religious sense as meaning that the universe was in some sense designed to produce life.
MR. WEINBERG: I don't see any clear evidence that the laws of nature or the constants of nature as we know them are fine tuned to allow life. I mean, certainly the laws of nature do allow life. But I don't see anything clearly in them that looks like a spectacular coincidence. I'm not convinced by any of those arguments.
There are some things that are quite mysterious in our understanding of nature as we know it now. There is a constant called the "cosmological constant", which if I didn't know anything I would make an estimate of what its magnitude would be just on the basis of guess work from what I know about the laws of nature. The correct value is less than that estimated value by something like 120 orders of magnitude. That looks like some kind of fine tuning. And we don't know. It may be that that number is simply zero, and it's zero for some fundamental reason that we will discover. And so it isn't fine tuned. It's also possible that the universe is bigger and more complicated than we had thought, and that what we call the universe, is just part of the universe, and that what we call the laws of nature differ from one part to another, and that we are living in a part of the universe where what we call the laws of nature, including the value of this constant, allow life to appear. In that case we wouldn't imagine that any supernatural agency fine tuned the laws and constants to make us possible, any more that we imagine that a supernatural agency arranged that the Earth had a temperature which allows life. Out there, there are doubtless millions of planets in the galaxy, and we live on one that allows life. That doesn't imply to me that it has been specially arranged to allow life.
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-frame.html
There are however one or two scientists, maybe twenty, who think the universe is fine-tuned by "God" . I'm sure.
this is interesting... and the last sentence does prove my point.
But, I suspect that interview is old. Now there is a virtual consensus the our universe appears designed. (I am not saying they conclude God... just appearance of design.)
There are of course many speculations about the cause.
Quote from stu:
It's no surprise it would be troubling to a scientist that an answer may not be forthcoming to a scientific question .
You read all sorts of weird things like creators designers magic and woo into that, for no good reason.
You like what scientists say so much listen to Hawking. The G word for designer is Gravity. What's your problem with that.
The G word might become gravity for Hawking given the 2 conditions which are pure speculation... it is not even theory.
1. you have to have an almost infinite multiverse.
2. you have to accept that a top down approach is even possible.
then gravity may / would select the line of universes you are in to observe.
Weinberg just told you the multiverse is not even a theory, it is pure speculation conjured up to explain the appearance of incredible fine tuning in our universe.
Quote from jem:
this is interesting... and the last sentence does prove my point.
But, I suspect that interview is old. Now there is a virtual consensus the our universe appears designed. (I am not saying they conclude God... just appearance of design.)
There are of course many speculations about the cause.
The last sentence is mine.
And no, they don't believe the universe was designed as that would assume a designer.
QUESTION: Do you think religion has value?
MR. WEINBERG: I think there's much to be said on both sides of that. I mean, certainly religion has produced great art. Where would architecture be without the great cathedrals and wonderful Japanese temples, and mosques.
On the moral side, however, I'm less sure about it. Certainly good causes have sometimes been mobilized under the banner of religion, but you find the opposite I think more often the case. It's more often been the motivation for us to kill each other - not only for people of one religion to kill those of another, but even within religions. After all, it was a Moslem who killed Sadat. It was a devout Jew who killed Rabin. It was a devout Hindu who killed Gandhi. And this has been going on for centuries and centuries.
I think in many respects religion is a dream - a beautiful dream often. Often a nightmare. But it's a dream from which I think it's about time we awoke. Just as a child learns about the tooth fairy and is incited by that to leave a tooth under the pillow - and you're glad that the child believes in the tooth fairy. But eventually you want the child to grow up. I think it's about time that the human species grew up in this respect.
I love that last paragraph.
MR. WEINBERG: I think there's much to be said on both sides of that. I mean, certainly religion has produced great art. Where would architecture be without the great cathedrals and wonderful Japanese temples, and mosques.
On the moral side, however, I'm less sure about it. Certainly good causes have sometimes been mobilized under the banner of religion, but you find the opposite I think more often the case. It's more often been the motivation for us to kill each other - not only for people of one religion to kill those of another, but even within religions. After all, it was a Moslem who killed Sadat. It was a devout Jew who killed Rabin. It was a devout Hindu who killed Gandhi. And this has been going on for centuries and centuries.
I think in many respects religion is a dream - a beautiful dream often. Often a nightmare. But it's a dream from which I think it's about time we awoke. Just as a child learns about the tooth fairy and is incited by that to leave a tooth under the pillow - and you're glad that the child believes in the tooth fairy. But eventually you want the child to grow up. I think it's about time that the human species grew up in this respect.
I love that last paragraph.
Quote from futurecurrents:
The last sentence is mine.
And no, they don't believe the universe was designed as that would assume a designer.
you have weinberg in the video
You can bury you head around if you wish or you could appreciate what weinberg is saying... as he grabs his head and says its pretty troubling trying to explain why dark energy cancels out the opposing force with an accuracy to what did he say 50 decimals places in our universe. Did you understand about the part about the universe expanding apart or crunching.
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hawking in a paper here
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0602/0602091v2.pdf
".... In fact if one does adopt a bottom-up approach to cosmology, one is immediately
led to an essentially classical framework, in which one loses all ability to explain cosmologyâs central question - why our universe is the way it is. In particular a bottom-up approach to cosmology either requires one to postulate an initial state of the universe that is carefully fine-tuned [10] - as if prescribed by an outside agency or it requires one to invoke the notion of eternal inflation [11], which prevents one from predicting what a typical observer would see.
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and dozens of other top science guys telling you there is an appearance of design and other amazing fine tunings.