Seven Things to Know About Our Universe

[rug]

11:22 am
Mon April 7, 2014
By Heather Goldstone

We’ve long thought of our universe as all-encompassing, the only one. But modern physics suggests ours may be just one of many.

In his new book, Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew, MIT physicist and author Dr. Alan Lightman explores our universe in seven essays, each delving into one facet of our corner of the multiverse:

1.Accidental: We’ve long thought of our universe as all-encompassing, the only one. But modern physics - specifically string theory and eternal expansion theory - suggests ours may be just one of many. While mind-boggling and somewhat disconcerting to many (physicists and lay people, alike) the multi-verse concept helps address what's known as the fine-tuning problem: why is our universe so perfectly suited for life? The scientific answer: it's an accident, or rather, a simple matter of statistical probability. With infinite universes following an infinite variety of physical laws, some small number will hit our sweet spot. And, by definition, that's where we've ended up.

2.Temporary: Nothing is forever. Not youth, not diamonds, not even the happy accident that is our solar system. In another six billion years or so, the sun will run out of hydrogen, expand into a red giant, and swallow up Mercury, Venus, and probably Earth (which will long since - as in a few billion years - have become too hot to support life).

http://capeandislands.org/post/seven-things-know-about-our-universe

48:12 audio interview at link.

[longship]

1. I don't know where religion comes into this, but I will be listening to it to find out.

Commentary after in listen to it.

R&K for possible confluence of physics and religion, if such a thing exists. (I have yet to be convinced that it does.)

Looks to be interesting.

on edit: not iPad friendly. Recording cut out 14 minutes into program. I am not going to play the game again. Too bad. There's no broadband here. Only dodgy cell network.

[ZombieHorde]

2. Point six and seven are close enough for this group,

in my opinion.

[rug]

4. Yes, that's what caught my aention.

6.Spiritual: A man of science and an atheist himself, Lightman is nonetheless quick to point out that there are questions and entire realms of knowledge outside the purview of science.

7.Disembodied: Technology enables us to learn about our world in ways unimaginable centuries, or even decades, ago. But Lightman argues, as many others have, that the omnipresence of technology in our daily lives also puts us at a distance from each other, and the world around us. He ends the book with a plea to reconnect, and a vision of what future generations might consider normal.

[longship]

5. Point 6 gets into philosophy.

Which is a domain science often does not tread. Those questions are best left to the philosophers. I agree with that principle.

Whether science is all one can know is such a question. However, because the methods of science are structured such that there is a presumption of naturalism, it inevitably sets a boundary of what science can know. This is called methodological naturalism. Philosophical naturalism, on the other hand, says that there is nothing but the natural universe. (I may misstate this, but that's my understanding of it.)

As one trained in science, I presume the universe to be natural because the methods of science make no sense without that presumption. That does not say that some day we won't find that to be false.

I know I am not being very clear here -- which is why I do not get into these philosophical discussions very often. But it is my position that it is very likely that the universe is entirely natural. There's certainly no verifiable data or unexplained anomalies to indicate otherwise. There are mysteries -- a multitude of mysteries -- but so far science has been able to come up with solutions to many of them. None of them could be called anomalous in the mathematical sense.

And why does mathematics so accurately describe the way the universe works? And is even able to accurately predict unseen discoveries decades in the future? My thinking is that both mathematics and the universe are logically consistent structures. It is natural that mathematics can model the universe, so to speak.

I would change my mind on this if there was evidence to the contrary. So far, that does not exist, as far as I've heard.

I wish I could have heard the entire interview.

Maybe iTunes has a podcast with another interview. Will look.

[rug]

6. Much of theology is philosophy. The datum is different.

[longship]

7. Yup. I would agree with that, in part.

The reason why I am an atheist is because I find no evidence in the universe for religious claims. I don't mean deism; I mean the claims made by theists. I don't think one can disprove or prove deism, but I think Okham's razor slices it off. It's an unnecessarily multiplied entity, as William of Okham may have termed it. That's why I do not call myself a deist, although I cannot prove there isn't a deist god.

From my view, theist beliefs seem to go beyond the evidence. They say that the deity interacts with the natural world. That should be something detectable. So I would state that the data is not only different, it does not seem exist beyond a personal experience. That is something science tries to avoid.

Although I tend to avoid invoking NOMA (Non-Overlapping MAgisteria), science and religion very well may be. I object to NOMA mostly because in practice theology seems to overlap quite a lot and use their political and cultural power to undermine science. I wish that weren't so.

So I would disagree with the different data argument. From a science point of view, theistic claims seem to be pretty much bereft of data. There's NOMA again.

Probably not easily resolvable, my friend. That's why I do not much care what people believe. I do care about how they act. That's where I might have something to say. And I do enjoy discussions with friends, even if there are disagreements.

[ZombieHorde]

3. I didn't listen to the interview,

but I enjoyed the article.