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Is Physical Law an Alien Intelligence? (nautil.us)
What if alien life were so advanced that its powers were indistinguishable from physics? It's the one-year anniversary of a startling article which appeared in Nautilus magazine. Long-time Slashdot reader wjcofkc writes: Caleb Scharf, astronomer and the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center at Columbia University presents an intriguing thought experiment.
"Perhaps Arthur C. Clarke was being uncharacteristically unambitious. He once pointed out that any sufficiently advanced technology is going to be indistinguishable from magic. If you dropped in on a bunch of Paleolithic farmers with your iPhone and a pair of sneakers, you'd undoubtedly seem pretty magical. But the contrast is only middling: The farmers would still recognize you as basically like them, and before long they'd be taking selfies. But what if life has moved so far on that it doesn't just appear magical, but appears like physics?"
The original submitter included their own counterarguments against the idea, but the astronomer follows his proposal to its ultimate conclusion.
"Perhaps hyper-advanced life isn't just external. Perhaps it's already all around. It is embedded in what we perceive to be physics itself, from the root behavior of particles and fields to the phenomena of complexity and emergence."
"Perhaps Arthur C. Clarke was being uncharacteristically unambitious. He once pointed out that any sufficiently advanced technology is going to be indistinguishable from magic. If you dropped in on a bunch of Paleolithic farmers with your iPhone and a pair of sneakers, you'd undoubtedly seem pretty magical. But the contrast is only middling: The farmers would still recognize you as basically like them, and before long they'd be taking selfies. But what if life has moved so far on that it doesn't just appear magical, but appears like physics?"
The original submitter included their own counterarguments against the idea, but the astronomer follows his proposal to its ultimate conclusion.
"Perhaps hyper-advanced life isn't just external. Perhaps it's already all around. It is embedded in what we perceive to be physics itself, from the root behavior of particles and fields to the phenomena of complexity and emergence."
It's not. It's not even intelligent.
We already have a name for their possible existence: god.
And what if the physicis of the physics-alien of our physics-alien was an alien intelligence also?
Mind... blown!
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Some quick questions:
1) Does this hypothesis have testable predictions,
2) Does the theory imply observations that we could make that would invalidate the theory?
I'm a fan of "Hey, Martha!" stories, they're entertaining and thought provoking, but I don't know how much serious consideration such a proposal warrants. (Compared to, say, the survivability of "The Martian" or whether aspects of the "Star Trek" universe are physically realizable.)
Nor snike
Not even a scientific hypothesis...fucking navel gazing dweebs.
I 'say' the laws of physics are a n dimensional clockwork. Using probabilistic collisions between parts to generate the modern physics parts. Prove me wrong?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Alien Life that is in and all around us in the guise of physics? Call their agents and warn them of the impending class action and cancelled deals.
In his books, Pirsig develops the concept of morality as equivalent to rules of nature. To Pirsig, a helium molecule is moral when it obeys the requirements of chemistry: Rising in air, not burning at room temperature, fusing in stellar furnaces. We could view physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. as sciences for empirically learning the morality of the universe.
I'm also reminded of Madoka, of course, but that's a completely different line of thought.
~ C.
Isn't this similar to Carl Sagan's Contact, with its image of a circle embedded in the digits of pi?
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!"
~Harcourt Fenton Mudd
This is really about dark matter and the crazy ideas that crop up in physics when we don't understand something and lack the tools to even start figuring it out.
It's not scientifically reasonable to ascribe life to a set of physics that we don't have any direct evidence of existing, but it's fun to think about. In the past, this would just be written up as science fiction. I'd be interested to know if Caleb Scharf is a fan of Greg Benford, or any of the other physicist created science fiction out there that contains similar ideas.
Basicly, calling physical laws either an alien intelligence or a product of an alien intelligence is nothing else than the question if we are living in the reality, or if we are just a simulation.
Can't discuss this topic right now, I'm WAY WAY too sober for this.
There's no such thing as bad thinking. There's such a thing as not following the train of thought to conclusions. Thought experiments and sking "what if" is great, and we need that, but it needs to be followed with scientific discipline, like attempts at establishing a null hypothesis, whether this can lead to a falsifiable theory, and what steps can be taken to mitigate bias.
As this is presented, it smells of veiled theism, published without the scientific precautions in place. That's bad, but asking "what if" is not.
We're all seeing that this and saying we live in a simulation, etc., is simply recasting spirituality and the idea of gods in a new form, right?
Which is fine, you can do that. But as someone used to seeing their religion in the crosshairs, it does strike me as a bit weird whenever the people instinctively scathing about religious ideas decide they really want them afterall, just co-opted under different labels.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
If physics is considered a form of life, then we'd also have to consider global warming to be a form of life. This of course raises a serious problem: if we try to stop global warming, then we're potentially killing a very unique and special form of life.
New Headline: Astronomer does bad theology.
If the idea is inherently un-testable, it's not science.
That's not to say it's right or wrong, just that you shouldn't be discussing it as if it were science. After all, the world may very well have been created by an outside-this-universe entity 1 second ago with all of our brain cells wired to think we've been alive for years or decades, but that's not a testable hypothesis and it has no place in science.
Now, if an idea is un-testable now but it might be someday, well, that might be within the realm of science.
However, the very words "indistinguishable from" seems to put this squarely in the realm of non-science.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Build a simulation where I can define my own physical laws. I would choose to jump like Wonder Woman!
So, these are the speculations of an "astronomer and the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center"?
Sounds like a fancy name for somebody who doesn't know that Space is fake. The Earth is flat.
The eclipses prove it.
Solar: https://vimeo.com/230976895 Light of chromosphere on back of moon
Lunar: https://vimeo.com/92378881 Shadow of Earth on moon changes color?
This is even worse then a article asking if God exists...
1 - You can't Prof it, ever, just like God.
2 - You will still end up with the question of what is the basic law on witch that intelligence would exist, making it a recursive paradox. Just like "who created God"
3 - And the worse part is that ppl already believe some Alien created and rules this existence... Aka "GOD".
If we exist in some kind of a contained/simulated existence then who ever owns this existence may be a Alien to it's peers but will be a God to us..
Let's face it, in the best case scenario is a attempt to explain God without using the word "God", in the worse case it is just a click bait...
Don't we have better articles to talk about?
Why is this crap here?
#BUILDTHEWALL
You are welcome on my lawn.
There is a fundamental equality among universal Turing machines, but not when time is taken into consideration.
Took me many years to complete that computation, but a sufficiently faster UTM could have finished in that many seconds.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Evident preposterousness aside, physics (or any other branch of science) isn't more than a collection of theoretical models replicating what we see as well as possible. There is no abstract and absolute entity called physics whose laws might be broken. We only have past experiences which are more/less likely to be repeated in the future and which physicists try to replicate by coming up with more/less reliable theories.
Referring to magic is almost the same than referring to ignorance and, as such, you can call magical whatever we cannot understand if that makes you happy (it seems a more sensible approach than in-denial behaviours not accepting the limitations of our current knowledge; in any case, note that I personally will never do any of those things: "magic" only as a joke/insult + always openly recognising what I don't know). Trying to explain why physics is as it is (what we don't know, other than "because it has always been like this") by relying on alien life (about which again we know nothing) seems quite magical.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
I always did wonder if some of the as yet unexplained physics could be a result of intelligent activity. Not the laws of nature themselves, but may something else that we already have observed but didn't see for what it is.
Sounds a lot like how religion got its start. I'll stick to physics thank you.
It's the same as "we're all living in a sim", isn't it?
That's a very good question.
So far as I can tell, there are testable predictions that the sim theory makes. These are predictions that are not required by the theory, but that, if we see them, would be good indications of the sim.
Consider scanning a color document, separating the color channels into R, G, and B, and then doing a histogram of each channel.
If the envelope of the red histogram is smooth and goes to zero at each end (at R=0 and R=255). then we might conclude that the scanner spans the entire range of "red".
If the envelope is smooth but has discontinuous jumps at zero and 255, it means that there are intensities of red smaller than the minimum value the scanner can distinguish, and intensities higher than the highest value. Basically, all the high intensity pixels in the image max out the A/D converter in the scanner, and all the low intensity pixels register as zero even though there is significant variation.
The discontinuities at either end of the measurement imply that there is information outside the measurement range of the scanner.
We can apply that logic to certain astrophysical measurements in the universe in certain cases. If we see measurement distributions which are smooth, but have discontinuous jumps at either end it might indicate that there is information outside the measurable universe, even though we cannot measure it.
We're up his ass, along with his head.
But that could easily because we can't see the "big picture". Once we develop an understanding of all the laws of the physical world, then it could be that there is inevitably only one way they could all be fitted together. There would be no need for an alien intelligence or "higher being" to have created them
The only question that would arise would be: who or what is the picture about?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Maybe people are so affraid to imagine a world without gods that they find a way to create another one!
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Somebody else (Stanislaw Lem) thought about that some decades ago, and wrote a speech "The New Cosmogony" from a fictive scientist in his story collection "The Complete Emptyness" (all titles translated by me into English from a translated / non-polish edition).
Somehow not on-topic, because it describes physical law as sentences or thoughts inside a game of aliens, but if you had thought a fe hours more about your question, perhaps you had chosen "intelligent exchange" instead of "intelligence".
Good question though!
Natural religions aren't a new thing, but if you want to swing that way, keep it to yourself.
making Timothy Leary come back from the dead, slap his forehead, punch himself in the nuts, go, 'WTF', and do the hokey pokey before exploding into a million pieces?
Oops. Columbia. Sillystring Valley probably gave them lessons, though.
Unless you provide a test for it, from a scientific standpoint it's about as sensible as wondering whether there's a pink teapot in the middle of a black hole. Or wondering what was before the Big Bang. There is exactly no way to test it in any way, so any speculation is as good as any other and none of them can be tested or falsified.
Next question?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Build a simulation where I can define my own physical laws. I would choose to jump like Wonder Woman!
To each his/her own. I would choose to date Wonder Woman.
Bear in mind sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from trollery.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Can I get published now too? That'd be great.
Indeed there is a strong argument to be made that physics is (part of) God, that whatever existed at the time of the big bang and will continue to exist is God.
I don't have time to go into detail at the moment, but new discoveries in quantum physics align amazingly well with Biblical explanations of the creation of the universe, wording in the ancient explanations that didn't really make sense until we understood quantum physics.
Language issues make it difficult to express in English since "is" has many meanings, Spanish and other languages are more precise, but basically whenever "God" was asked "what are you?" or "who are you?" the answer was "I am what has always been". (Soy que es in Spanish) To the extent that physics is timeless, physics *is* God and God is physics, according to God's word.
Or maybe all existence is infinite and fractal. Our solar system just an atom in a much larger structure. Atoms that we see each a solar system in its own right. The laws of physics we experience then are simply the aggregate sum of all motions at each scale beneath us, and our planetary motions contribute to the various wave/resonance effects felt at ever higher scales: eg electricity and gravity. Time is only a measurement of motion beneath a given scale. There is no beginning, no end. No end of the universe. No alternate realities or physical dimensions beyond the 3rd. Only scales below, and above.
just saying.
cuz it seems kinda... obvious. :-)
I would be content to jump Wonder Woman.
making Timothy Leary come back from the dead, slap his forehead, punch himself in the nuts, go, 'WTF', and do the hokey pokey before exploding into a million pieces?
In the fictional story of Leary's cryo-preservation, only his head was saved. So, no hands to slap his forehead or punch his nuts. And no nuts for that matter. IMHO, I'd rather stay frozen.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Indeed there is a strong argument to be made that physics is (part of) God, that whatever existed at the time of the big bang and will continue to exist is God.
I don't have time to go into detail at the moment, but new discoveries in quantum physics align amazingly well with Biblical explanations of the creation of the universe, wording in the ancient explanations that didn't really make sense until we understood quantum physics.
Language issues make it difficult to express in English since "is" has many meanings, Spanish and other languages are more precise, but basically whenever "God" was asked "what are you?" or "who are you?" the answer was "I am what has always been". (Soy que es in Spanish) To the extent that physics is timeless, physics *is* God and God is physics, according to God's word.
There is this branch of Hinduism, part of Advaita Vedanta (non-dualist philosophy; there is no dualism, no "us and God") which says that the universe comes from Gods efforts to know more about itself.
God wanted to understand itself. So it shattered itself into countless shards, forming this universe, everything in this universe and every possible universe.
Each of these shards goes on to experience everything that can possibly be experienced, gathering up all knowledge and information.
Eventually, in some infinitely distant future, these shards combine together again into God.
In that moment, God 'remembers' every experience of every one of its fragments and comes to understand its own nature.
In this philosophy your personal self-experience and self-consciousness is, in fact, God in the far distant future remembering your life, recollecting what it was to be you.
And so, you (the self that dwells within, the one who observes your life and your experiences) really are God.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
"I will prove to be what I will prove to be." In other words, "I am the one that can and will continue to cause things to happen the way I want them to happen, cause people to do what I want them to do, and cause the existence or non-existence of that which I choose."
He Causes To Become. Ye Hawah. He causes to become, not just in existence, but in action and purpose.
Physics is not God, and God is not physics. God created and caused everything that manifests itself as "physics", and he maintains it with his dynamic energy. As for "timeless", only God is timeless. The physical universe had a beginning, and scientists have established that it was approximately 14 billion years ago. And as for the creation account, there's no need for quantum physics to explain it. It's quite simple. God created the physical universe. Then, when he turned his attention toward earth, around 10 billion years later, he first formed the geological characteristics of the planet, then created plant life, then animal life in increasingly complex designs. Last came humans, the first animals with the ability to reason and show the same type of emotional and mental characteristics as God himself, albeit not to his level. His mechanisms for doing any of these things are not stated in the Bible, and many of them are time-critical to the point that they couldn't have happened if left to chance. (There are odds, and they are so miniscule as to be essentially equivalent to zero.)
The Bible isn't a mystery. It's an accurate and reliable guide to human history and future events provided by someone who knows what has happened because he was there and knows what will happen because he will be there and will make it happen. Everyone would do well to heed its counsel.
Then we can go to the next step.
Aliens. Ever seen even 1?
This is nothing but a 400 year old idea re-born as a benevolent intelligence, or an even older idea of god, spirit, or $deity. Aliens are just more currently palatable than "god" or an evil demon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon
It's a fun idea, but it's not science. It also seems to be guilty of a re-defining, and large expansion of "intelligence". If you expand a word to mean anything, then of course you can connect any other thing to this new-found catch-all word.
Also I've observed over the years that the less we know about something, the more we can make up. That's fun and interesting in a mind expanding sort of way, but unless you can tie it back to something real, you're just indulging your own fantasy rather than saying much of anything.
This is not, "an intriguing thought experiment" any more today than it was millions of years ago when the first active brain cell asked this very same question. The second active brain cell answered, "what the fuck have you been smoking?!"
Claims are like rear orifices, everyone has one. This either putting for a position for intelligent design or the simulation argument and all the top scientists and researchers in this field unless I'm missed some groundbreaking discovery have found ZERO evidence for either claim. This is also not a new thought. This is an old idea. Mr. Scharf ought to read books and attend lectures by people who are far more qualified and educated about this topic.
We'll make great pets
Do you see Jesus' image burned into your toast in the morning, perchance?
Mighty small straw you have there. Planning to murder your neighbor for shits and giggles is bad thinking. Not following through is good thinking winning out.
Can I make soup out of it?
We seem to have lots of independent, confusing, unconnected pieces. All of which appear to be separate and independent.
But that could easily because we can't see the "big picture". Once we develop an understanding of all the laws of the physical world, then it could be that there is inevitably only one way they could all be fitted together.There would be no need for an alien intelligence or "higher being" to have created them
The only question that would arise would be: who or what is the picture about?
The pieces are only independent, confusing, and unconnected because you revolt and shuffle around the puzzle when a recognizable image starts to appear.
Romans 1:20- "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
If there's is no creator who made us on purpose, for His own reasons, their our lives are about nothing. You're no more meaningful than a gold fish.
I don't believe that, though. Science repeatedly points to special singular events that are best explained by the intervention of an all-knowing, all-powerful entity.
Start with the big bang. Are you telling me in one instant there was nothing, and the next instant there were the makings of everything, and those components exploded away from each other in such a coincidental fashion as to result in our universe today.... and this doesn't plainly point to God engaging in creation?
You could hit back with 'God of the gaps', of course, but be wary of 'science of the gaps' as well- when you make up some absurd, just-so tale to explain away the inexplicable, with absolutely no basis in the observable universe.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
It sounds too much like design by intent, or to put it in other terms; intelligent design. I'm not philosophically opposed to that viewpoint, HOWEVER what is wrong with the more elegant idea that what we see is based upon simple emergence?
There was some very intriguing recent work about basic axiomatic principles that govern information theory, and how by necessity, one could directly derive physical laws from it.
Inotherwords, the laws of the Universe is more like a complex set of laws that emerge from a simpler set of very practical issues on how information itself is governed from a purely mathematical / logical / axiomatic standpoint.
Not God, Not Aliens, just plain old Turing completeness.
I remember a joke from back in the day about how some cosmic programmer noticed we humans had figured out how to get power from nothing. They fixed the bug, recompiled and restarted the process. The last line was the title of the joke cold fusion 1987.
How can someone postulate something infinite like intelligence, computing power, or might in a finite space (e.g. brain, computer, universe)? This is non sense.
There's this movie called 'The gods must be crazy'. Find it, watch it closely. All will become clear then.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080801/?ref_=nv_sr_1
It is the matrix, god, simulation, higher being rubbish. Now in its new form omnipotent alien. Actually, god is also an omnipotent alien, who created the universe or maybe only hovered over the water. The Christian Bible is a little bit imprecise and ambiguous. Anyway, if you cannot test it, it is not a theory, it is an believe. You can believe all you want. It is also not a thought experiment. Thought experiments are used to construct a hypothetical reality and identify its features. Then you try to test these features. If it fails your experiment failed. You also can test whether your thought experiment provides the same results as past observations.
Mighty small straw you have there. Planning to murder your neighbor for shits and giggles is bad thinking.
Planning to murder your neighbour is not bad thinking - it's the "for" part that makes it bad thinking, putting the cart before the horse.
Not following through is good thinking winning out.
Not necessarily, no. The not following through is likely related to jumping to a conclusion from a premise that either murder or being caught is bad. Without justifying either premise, it's bad thinking.
Given infinite time, every person should ponder things unlikely to become action, including how to murder one's neighbour, or how to make white asparagus ice cream. That's not bad thinking. Being able to explain why it shouldn't be done, without inserting any unfounded premises is good thinking. Jumping to conclusions is bad thinking.
Speculating on possible reasons why the universe exists or is the way it is is not bad thinking.
Saying "ergo, it must be god or aliens" is bad thinking.
Saying "there is no god/aliens, so the question is bullshit" is bad thinking.
Saying "gods/aliens are irrelevant to the question; we need to answer how before we answer why" is good thinking.
I read the book. It does not explain anything about physics. If you cannot elaborate, then the only thing I can do is believe or do not believe. Therefore, this is not physics, but religion. BTW: Have you ever read a physics book? Including those in high school. I doubt that.
The article is the same old $deity argument. The we live in a bottle, matrix, simulation argument, which always points to a higher being who controls the damn thing. I have read some nice science fiction books on that topic. Nice thought, but really not a thought experiment. And yes it shows the demise of the enlightenment in the US. And as always Europe is behind you be 20 years. So the rest of western civilization will convert back to a gelatinous state or medieval times. Currently, we are approaching feudalism, a.k.a., oligarchy. Other lead civilizations have also gone down this path. Sadly, we will ruin the climate so that our stupid progenies in 100+x years will certainly face harsh conditions put onto them by the God(s).
... who created that jigsaw puzzle?
This is echo some of the arguments made in this book - https://www.amazon.com/New-Pro... ... specifically that the fact that there are laws and they favour life is evidence that and advanced civilisation/god exists.
The clues are all around us, but if we have any less-than-honest traits, or personal agenda, we blind ourselves! total honesty would be an incredibly important key in the Quest for truth...!
Where would be the intelligence in physical laws? I would expect an intelligence form to make decisions, and we do not say "physical laws" by mistake: they are supposed to be valid anywhere, anytime.
When out observations mismatch with a physical laws, it is not the law that took a decision. We just got outside of the law's domain of application, and we start over with a more general physical law.
I thought we're beyond that.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I'm so based I *am* the laws of physics. The laws of physics are me.
Dude,..
Let's smoke another one.
The book doesn't say anything about it directly. But there are a segment of Christians that honestly believe what he is saying - that physics itself is a manifestation of God. It's a progression from the watchmaker idea, where God creates physics and sets the world in motion, but isn't actually part of the watch himself. The honest/self-consistent Christians (there are very few) who believe this have had to forsake Biblical literalism as well, since a literal interpretation of the Bible contradicts with physics.
No. It's almost exactly the same idea as the "the universe is a simulation" hypothesis. These are not scientific hypotheses since they make no testable predictions. The only way you could confirm these sorts of theories is if the alien entity makes a mistake and even then the mistake has to be of such a nature that it defies any logical explanation e.g. an electron's mass is slightly larger on the first thursday of every month or something equally bizarre and unconnected to a physical cycle like days of the week.
The result is that these sorts of theories should be classed as a religious belief and not science. Like a religion, they explain the physical laws of the universe and/or the universe itself as being created by some intelligence. As such they put that intelligence beyond our framework of existence and so are completely untestable unless that intelligence reveals itself to us - either deliberately or accidentally.
You might be right. But assertions without evidence fall into a category of ideas called "faith." You can have faith in God, or you can have faith that there is not a God. Either way, you are taking your belief on faith.
There's about 80 million years of differential, evolutionarily, right there. (And that's discounting the accelerating pace of change once a self-aware species can do things like direct its own evolution.)
If an ant goes out foraging, insofar as it has any thought process at all, if it comes back and its nest is wrecked, that's just something that HAPPENED - I doubt even a self-aware ant could ever conceptualize the idea that "oh that's just a big thing like me backing his car out of the garage that did it".
-Styopa
Always remember: Ceiling Cat is watching you masturbate.
TFA merely raises some interesting speculations, regarding the true nature of Ceiling Cat. But his purpose in this universe remains unchanged.
As proposed extension of Kardashev scale, type IV.
See this science paper for an example: http://mono.eik.bme.hu/~galant...
"The book"? Which of dozens of books on the subject did you read? Even just limiting it to books written by physics professors, there are several recent ones.
But this doesn't imply to me (as far as I've yet thought about it) anything to do with being in a sim, versus the idea that technological progress marches forward and we get sensors with wider range, higher resolution, and cheaper as time goes forward. Yes, it's nice to have sensors. Better yet to have better sensors. I don't see what that has to do with testability of sim hypotheses.
We're all seeing that this and saying we live in a simulation, etc., is simply recasting spirituality and the idea of gods in a new form, right?
Which is fine, you can do that. But as someone used to seeing their religion in the crosshairs, it does strike me as a bit weird whenever the people instinctively scathing about religious ideas decide they really want them afterall, just co-opted under different labels.
Conway's Game Of Life / Cellular Automata observations provide a distinctly new flavor here. Those things aren't just pure imagined abstractions, you can watch it on a computer screen and consider whether it is a legitimately persuasive factor considering the hypotheses. I find it persuasive (to open the door of consideration, not as any kind of proof or direct evidence).
Number 2. Is actually evidence we are a simulation... it is not a conservation technique but evidence that the whole thing is run on a digital computer.
One should consider at least two alternatives. One, some sort of naturally occuring/evolved reality-fabric. Vs two, God's computer with a user making choices about how that computer operates. And three, turtles all the way down, bla bla bla
Atoms that we see each a solar system in its own right.
There is only one Solar system. There are however numerous star systems. Just sayin’...
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
That bong of yours is really an alien spaceship.
Table-ized A.I.
This is sounds like a more extreme version of the current "UFO theory" or "greys theory" in which humanity is basically a zoo and/or breeding farm being watched over or managed by alien beings who do their tasks largely invisible to us.
I know people who are adamant they witnessed some really odd stuff. I cannot outright dismiss it.
Table-ized A.I.
It's quite psycho to search for patterns in the white noise.
This idea is just as wacky as some silicone valley guys thinking we are trapped in a computer simulation.
I suspect the true origin of the Universe is beyond our comprehension. Like expecting a chicken to understand Calculus.
If there are 'super-beings', they are likely both unaware and indifferent to us and are likely no less responsible for the creation of astrophysics as we are responsible for quantum physics. If you consider that our bodies are made up of nothing more than mass collections of subatomic particles arranged into atoms, which are arranged into molecules, which are arranged into DNA, which is then correspondingly mapped to our tissue, as 'super-being' could potentially exist, but our entire universe would then serve as something as inconsequential as an atom, with our concept of a multiverse serving as a vast array of 'mega-atoms' that could on a vast enough scale using models of physics we cannot fully observe or appreciate, culminate into something we would consider a 'celestial super-being'. Such a being may be as relatively inconsequential as we are to it... we are small minded creatures that barely exist.. we are living on a grain of dust amidst a vast explosion.. the universe is 'expanding' / exploding as we speak at incredible speeds, yet thanks to distance, scale, and relativity - we perceive much of our own reality as static or in incredible slow-motion. All of our current advances can be attributed to our society acting as a mass-collective of intelligence...Our 'Giants' standing on the shoulders of giants before them.. one genius making a tremendous breakthrough by continuing the work of his predecessors. Individually, we are ignorant, unremarkable, and blind, which is why we so desperately cling to simplistic explanations that ignore observation, logic, and scientific method in favor of superstitious cults we call religion. No offense is intended, but reality is if anything incredibly indifferent to our beliefs and desires.
You don't have time to go into it because there is nothing to go into.
First, one would have to define the term "god."
Then one would have to identify the physical phenomenon that meets the definition of the term "god."
Then one would have to examine this physical phenomenon to see if it matches what is in the bible.
Finally, one would have to examine the bible account to see if any of its terms and explanations reveal any scientific insight into events that current models suggest may have happened.
None of these things have been done in any way that could honestly be called rigorous.
On top of this, there have been challenges to the Big Bang. I don't mean people challenging the model but rather observed phenomena that have challenged the model such as the measurement of an increasing rate of expansion. So the model has been modified to explain these challenges or explanations have been issued that have implications for the model.
So in the end you would have a comparison between a myth and a speculation of what may have occurred based upon current understanding. Given enough vagueness and generosity it would be more surprising if the two human imaginings deviated in all aspects.
"I don't have time to go into detail at the moment..."
An easy way out of a nonsensical comment. Way to troll.
“He proceeded to take all of his clothes off, and get completely naked, and started masturbating.”
> First, one would have to define the term "god."
Given that's the entire point of the exercise, that step isn't so much "first", as "only". Yet I gave you the definition. God: everything that has always been, and always will be. That's the Biblical definition.
> Then one would have to identify the physical phenomenon that meets the definition of the term "god."
To the best of our knowledge until now, all laws of physics meet the definition. That leaves a big question, though: if the laws of physics are timeless, and the pre-big bang universe stable, why didn't the big bang occur sooner? The current theory now being discussed due to advances in quantum physics is that before the big bang one of two things would have been true:
1. some laws of physics were almost like division by zero. While division (the law) was defined, it would have been inoperable until it had something to operate on.
2. Some laws of physics was NOT defined prior to the big bang. Declaring it would then have caused the big bang. That's a strange and fascinating idea. (Let there be light ...)
Then one would have to examine this physical phenomenon to see if it matches what is in the bible.
> Finally, one would have to examine the bible account to see if any of its terms and explanations reveal any scientific insight into events that current models suggest may have happened.
The main thing the physicists say it explains is the big bang, the creation of the universe itself.
So what you're saying is that to understand how the latest advances in quantum physics might relate to things written in in John (and things in Exodus), one should obviously go back to much older writings based on ancient oral tradition, specifically Genesis. Interesting approach.
With all due respect, me thinks you're the one who hasn't read so much. Professor of theoretical physics Michio Kaku (best known for string theory) has a good introduction to the subject. Physics and astronomy professor Stephen Barr goes into more detail.
Professor of theoretical physics Michio Kaku (best known for string theory) has a good introduction to the subject. Physics and astronomy professor Stephen Barr goes into more detail.
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..., wording in the ancient explanations that didn't really make sense until we understood quantum physics.
Somebody finally understood quantum physics?
The Bible isn't a mystery. It's an accurate and reliable guide to human history and future events provided by someone who knows what has happened because he was there and knows what will happen because he will be there and will make it happen. Everyone would do well to heed its counsel.
The bible is a disgraceful, meandering, weird pile of shit written by obnoxious, lying, power hungry little creeps. It belongs in the dark ages where it came from.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
We already have some people who believe that our universe is simply an illusion created by some sort of computer program. It could be that our notion that physical laws exist at all is simply part of the illusion. It goes without saying that if all we see is simply an illusion we have little reason to be motivated to do anything at all. There is no gain no matter what we do or believe.
If something is 'indistinguishable from physics' then guess what? It's physics and we'd have no way to detect otherwise so speculating on such things isn't reality it is religion/metaphysics/philosophy. I get that its 'fun' speculating about such things, maybe even writing Sci-Fi based on some of these ideas but physics is grounded in what we can detect not random speculation/hypothesis. I blame Superstring/Multi-verse hypothesis for this kind of shit, a bunch of Physicists have spent their career working on something that can't be 'proven' & they need some way to justify their careers.
Why does science keep trying to invent new Gods to explain the unexplainable? We already have Gods for that - and accompanying systems of morality responsible for Western Civilization - we don't need your programmable matter or stimulationist hogwash, I have seen your "progress" and it's a mulatto underclass ruled by Jews. Your religion is shit and you are shit.
I think Edwin A. Abbott summed it all up in his short story 133 years ago. If a two dimensional being cannot imagine a three dimensional being, and when it does meet one, it only sees two of the three dimensions and the three dimensional guy can see the two dimensional's innards.. So much the same for us, when we meet a fourth dimensional being, we will only see three, and it will see our guts.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
No shit, this was my actual Slashdot MOTD, tucked just under this article entry on the main page:
We don't know much yet about our alien aetherlords, but we can now deduce there must be at least one renegade aetherchild who experiences malicious delight in gaslighting sentient fluctuations.
You've been so busy arguing something you want to argue about, and trying stupid ad hominem attacks against what you see as "religious people" that you've not yet bothered to read even the subject line of my post, it seems.
> if your initial statement was only a believe, then we do not need to talk about it, as clearly you believe it and i don't.
Yes, I believe physics currently exists. You don't?
Spanish and other languages are more precise,
Only in your dreams. English and German are the most precise languages to deal with science and tech. There's a saying that goes by as "you can only philosophize in German". Of course it is not so simple, but it is pretty acceptable.
(Soy que es in Spanish) To the extent that physics is timeless,
Yo soy el que siempre he sido. FTFY.
Professor of theoretical physics Michio Kaku (best known for string theory)
String "theory" [better String Hypothesis] is just another religion.
FYI - we discussed something similar here:
https://slashdot.org/poll/3045...
Is it cause it features Clintons?
Or is it cause, in the reasoning of the joke above (and below) it reflects the position of Trump's cabinet on Trump?
It's he Clintons, right?
As in, right has a Clinton-phobia. Which is why they can't let go of their fear of Clintons even when they win.
I guess being a loser IS a state of mind.
Too bad one can't gerrymander that state, right?
Right?
Hello?
Anyway... as I was saying, in reply to the question "What if alien life were so advanced that its physical manifestation was indistinguishable from Donald J. Trump?"...
Life on Earth would be indistinguishable from an episode of Freakazoid.
Right now we're lacking the whole flying saucer thing.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Insufficient data for a meaningful answer.
It's not a sim, it's a bubble of confidence.
You read ancient Greek or Hebrew - depending on which parts of the Buy-Bull you're wittering on about. Or the Vulgate translation to Latin? Or Luther's translation from Latin to German. Or Tyndale's translation into English, considerably cribbed from Luther's. Or the several other translations into English, mostly cribbed from Tyndale's.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
No? File under spirituality and religion.