Why not? If you can't observe it, test it, and reproduce it, then it lies outside the realm of science and in the realm of belief. Until someone figures out a way to experimentally verify the big bang hypothesis (or any other explanation for the origin of the universe or what came "before"), it's entirely fair to attribute it to whatever you feel like, be it a god or anything else. There is no law of the universe that guarantees that science is capable of answering all questions.
Well, I think surely the entirely fair thing to do is to just admit we don't know rather than make any attribution or imply any possession of an answer to those questions?
Humans have created models for things they don't understand throughout human history. Certainly throughout any recorded history. We don't know, but we have a model that fits pretty well and we can guess at the underlying causes. We'll be wrong more often than right, but over time as we get more data and we can test more things, we get a more accurate model. Not necessarily the right model. We may never get that. But based on those models, "guesses" are far more reliable than "The Sun is a god who circles the world".
While we don't "know" how gravity works we can explain it and model it much more accurately now than when logos was the explanation. Providing those details is far more useful than a simple "we don't know."
Certainly, that's also perfectly fair. The thing to keep in mind is that some people derive utility from belief in some sort of creator, so ultimately it's an argument of values (specifically, you're looking to argue that people should prefer uncertainty to unprovable (but also undisprovable!) certainty).
If you can't observe it, test it, and reproduce it, then it lies outside of the realm of (natural) science and may lie within the realm of mathematics, philosophy, or (gasp) theology.
> There is no law of the universe that guarantees that science is capable of answering all questions.
There's a name for a more nuanced version of this "law" and there's a good amount of work being done arguing for and against weaker and stronger versions of it: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/
I think it's important to clarify that the question of whether or not everything has a cause is itself outside of science. Science is about determining what a cause is likely to be, using the universe itself as a source of truth, and constrained by fundamental limits on our ability to observe and experiment. Which is to say, even if the philosophers conclude that everything must have a cause, there is still no law that says that we (as scientific agents of a universe that is attempting to understand itself) are capable of determining every possible cause.
There's quite a big philosophical difference between "there exists a point beyond which it is possible to make observations" and "the universe was created by an omnipotent being"
Anything outside of what we can observe will always be based on faith anyway. We'll probably never understand what's "before" the big bang, wether it make sense to ask that question or why something exists rather than nothing.
I don't think so - god is substantially less parsimonious. But in the end, I think you're sort of using two different notions of belief as if they were the same.
I believe (lowercase b) in all sorts of stuff, scientific and otherwise, but believing in God typically indicates some kind of act of faith, which is to say, ultimately, to believe in something despite the absence of evidence for it and for some deeper reason than can be furnished by a warrant of some kind. I can believe in the spontaneous generation of the universe in the lowercase b sense of the word without really having anything to do at all with the latter kind of belief, which I think is kind of dumb.
Historically, in the West at least, the ability or inability to reason one's way to the existence of God determined whether you needed to rely on faith or not.
On the other hand, there are a lot of stars and different cultures might give them different names and yet there really are many of them.
Furthermore, assume God doesn't exist. Lots of cultures might invent god for various reasons and they'd naturally have different names and attributes for them, which in fact seems to be the current state of affairs.
In fact, if we assume God exists and is actively in communication with humans, its actually a bit weird that different human cultures would have different conceptions and names for that being. Why didn't it just give everyone the same name and information?
> Various isolated cultures are going to come up with different names for God.
People hate not knowing the answer to the big questions so much that they'll readily accept whatever answers are served up to them.
> This like saying which Sun? Surya, Ra or Helios?
The difference is that the sun is readily observed. A conveniently invisible god isn't.
> All are different names of sun. But there is only one sun.
And there's only one human nature, which is why it's not surprising that common artefacts of human nature (e.g. religion) emerged universally throughout ancient human cultures.
How so? If you attribute it to an earlier universe, you are just pushing the problem further back. It doesn't seem to be a proof or even a mild indication.
The universe casually didn't follow the laws of physics immediately after the Big Bang, an improbable event directly after an improbable event. No explanation has been found, even according to CERN, why everything that was created was not spontaneously annihilated. Attributing that to a divine intervention is the most probable explanation. CERN attributing this to "Some unknown entity" is humorous.
One theory (which CERN is using) is to argue that almost all matter was destroyed, and that the current observable universe is merely the tiny leftover due to slight differences in behavior, making the Big Bang look more like the Ludicrous Bang. This, of course, just contributes to religious snickering at how all problems are solved by adding another billion years to the timeline, over and over.
Edit to reply: They behave differently; but why there is more of one than the other, remains unexplained; as regardless of how they behave, both should have been initially created in equal numbers. As for Sabine Hossenfelder's quote, that's a religious-faith level cop-out. When science requires faith, should it not be treated as a religion?
Belief in anything is completely trivial unless you act based on those beliefs. No one is going to waste time worshiping, or murder someone over, the "nothing" from before "something".
Why not? If you can't observe it, test it, and reproduce it, then it lies outside the realm of science and in the realm of belief. Until someone figures out a way to experimentally verify the big bang hypothesis (or any other explanation for the origin of the universe or what came "before"), it's entirely fair to attribute it to whatever you feel like, be it a god or anything else. There is no law of the universe that guarantees that science is capable of answering all questions.
Well, I think surely the entirely fair thing to do is to just admit we don't know rather than make any attribution or imply any possession of an answer to those questions?
Humans have created models for things they don't understand throughout human history. Certainly throughout any recorded history. We don't know, but we have a model that fits pretty well and we can guess at the underlying causes. We'll be wrong more often than right, but over time as we get more data and we can test more things, we get a more accurate model. Not necessarily the right model. We may never get that. But based on those models, "guesses" are far more reliable than "The Sun is a god who circles the world".
While we don't "know" how gravity works we can explain it and model it much more accurately now than when logos was the explanation. Providing those details is far more useful than a simple "we don't know."
Certainly, that's also perfectly fair. The thing to keep in mind is that some people derive utility from belief in some sort of creator, so ultimately it's an argument of values (specifically, you're looking to argue that people should prefer uncertainty to unprovable (but also undisprovable!) certainty).
If you can't observe it, test it, and reproduce it, then it lies outside of the realm of (natural) science and may lie within the realm of mathematics, philosophy, or (gasp) theology.
> There is no law of the universe that guarantees that science is capable of answering all questions.
There's a name for a more nuanced version of this "law" and there's a good amount of work being done arguing for and against weaker and stronger versions of it: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/
I think it's important to clarify that the question of whether or not everything has a cause is itself outside of science. Science is about determining what a cause is likely to be, using the universe itself as a source of truth, and constrained by fundamental limits on our ability to observe and experiment. Which is to say, even if the philosophers conclude that everything must have a cause, there is still no law that says that we (as scientific agents of a universe that is attempting to understand itself) are capable of determining every possible cause.
There's quite a big philosophical difference between "there exists a point beyond which it is possible to make observations" and "the universe was created by an omnipotent being"
Verily, for all knowest that the gods live up in the sky, which is forever unreachable and unobservable by any man.
Yes. The man can never see consciousness. Only consciousness can see man.
Am omnipotent being is a necessity for making observations. A lot of religions considers consciousness as God.
I don't see how this is. It seems eminently reasonable that observation can simply be performed by sub-omnipotent beings.
5 replies →
Anything outside of what we can observe will always be based on faith anyway. We'll probably never understand what's "before" the big bang, wether it make sense to ask that question or why something exists rather than nothing.
To me, calling the unknown "God" is imposing a term loaded with human preconception and biases in exactly the place you don't want those things.
I don't think so - god is substantially less parsimonious. But in the end, I think you're sort of using two different notions of belief as if they were the same.
I believe (lowercase b) in all sorts of stuff, scientific and otherwise, but believing in God typically indicates some kind of act of faith, which is to say, ultimately, to believe in something despite the absence of evidence for it and for some deeper reason than can be furnished by a warrant of some kind. I can believe in the spontaneous generation of the universe in the lowercase b sense of the word without really having anything to do at all with the latter kind of belief, which I think is kind of dumb.
Historically, in the West at least, the ability or inability to reason one's way to the existence of God determined whether you needed to rely on faith or not.
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/docum...
Nice, paragraph 5 and he's already into "evolution is fiction and commies love it."
1 reply →
Sort of like believing that we have free will.
You're confusing belief with accepting the current scientific consensus.
The Big Bang theory was created by a Catholic priest. So yes.
And the Big Bang was created by the priest's God.
Which God? Vishnu? Ra? Amatarasu?
Prince Philip? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip_movement
Assume God exists.
Various isolated cultures are going to come up with different names for God.
This like saying which Sun? Surya, Ra or Helios?
All are different names of sun. But there is only one sun.
On the other hand, there are a lot of stars and different cultures might give them different names and yet there really are many of them.
Furthermore, assume God doesn't exist. Lots of cultures might invent god for various reasons and they'd naturally have different names and attributes for them, which in fact seems to be the current state of affairs.
In fact, if we assume God exists and is actively in communication with humans, its actually a bit weird that different human cultures would have different conceptions and names for that being. Why didn't it just give everyone the same name and information?
6 replies →
But that sun has never been a pharoah of Egypt.
If the only common factor is a belief that 'something' created 'something', you're really not saying anything worth evaluating.
> Various isolated cultures are going to come up with different names for God.
People hate not knowing the answer to the big questions so much that they'll readily accept whatever answers are served up to them.
> This like saying which Sun? Surya, Ra or Helios?
The difference is that the sun is readily observed. A conveniently invisible god isn't.
> All are different names of sun. But there is only one sun.
And there's only one human nature, which is why it's not surprising that common artefacts of human nature (e.g. religion) emerged universally throughout ancient human cultures.
1 reply →
The gods in different cultures aren't just named differently, have different properties.
[flagged]
How so? If you attribute it to an earlier universe, you are just pushing the problem further back. It doesn't seem to be a proof or even a mild indication.
The universe casually didn't follow the laws of physics immediately after the Big Bang, an improbable event directly after an improbable event. No explanation has been found, even according to CERN, why everything that was created was not spontaneously annihilated. Attributing that to a divine intervention is the most probable explanation. CERN attributing this to "Some unknown entity" is humorous.
One theory (which CERN is using) is to argue that almost all matter was destroyed, and that the current observable universe is merely the tiny leftover due to slight differences in behavior, making the Big Bang look more like the Ludicrous Bang. This, of course, just contributes to religious snickering at how all problems are solved by adding another billion years to the timeline, over and over.
https://home.cern/science/physics/matter-antimatter-asymmetr...
Edit to reply: They behave differently; but why there is more of one than the other, remains unexplained; as regardless of how they behave, both should have been initially created in equal numbers. As for Sabine Hossenfelder's quote, that's a religious-faith level cop-out. When science requires faith, should it not be treated as a religion?
3 replies →
Things existing is pretty miraculous! How is any of this stuff here?!?!?
Belief in anything is completely trivial unless you act based on those beliefs. No one is going to waste time worshiping, or murder someone over, the "nothing" from before "something".