Origins of the Universe

robindch

> What it cannot tell is us whether any of those are bad things.

Well, "bad" is like "evil" -- it's a cultural thing. In some societies, for example, gays are tolerated, even encouraged, while in others, they're seen as suffering from the worst kind of moral failing. There's no knowledge-based solution to determining which one is the right one, because there isn't one -- it's just an understanding that some people have. It's like trying to work out whether "flitz" is a better word for a banana than "flutz" is...

Zillah

aidan24326 wrote:

There was a reason why the original scientists were also philosophers, they were thinkers first and foremost.

Agreed, thinking is a good thing. The fact that the first thinkers were philosopher doesn't mean that philosophy has any particular use now.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> What it cannot tell is us whether any of those are bad things.

Well, "bad" is like "evil" -- it's a cultural thing. In some societies, for example, gays are tolerated, even encouraged, while in others, they're seen as suffering from the worst kind of moral failing. There's no knowledge-based solution to determining which one is the right one, because there isn't one -- it's just an understanding that some people have. It's like trying to work out whether "flitz" is a better word for a banana than "flutz" is...

Ooh...moral relativism! Oddly, virtually no society promotes incest or murder as a 'good' thing,

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

Ooh...moral relativism!

Only way to go.

Oddly, virtually no society promotes incest

Ancient Egypt. The Pharohs were inbred for centuries. Most of European nobility during the middles ages and after were horribly inbred.

or murder

Every society has promoted killing of some sort. Ever single nation in the world has killed citizens of another nation at some stage.

Sharia law promotes honour killings that would be outright murder in the western world. The Aztecs and Carthaginians had lots of human sacrifice integral to their society.


Its all relative

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

Ancient Egypt. The Pharohs were inbred for centuries. Most of European nobility during the middles ages and after were horribly inbred.

Pharaonic Egypt, for the Pharaohs only. Not exactly cultural. European nobility? Not really, more the result of a small pool of possible partners - see consanguinity laws, which were explicitly intended to prevent incest.

Zillah wrote:

Every society has promoted killing of some sort. Ever single nation in the world has killed citizens of another nation at some stage.

Sharia law promotes honour killings that would be outright murder in the western world. The Aztecs and Carthaginians had lots of human sacrifice integral to their society.

None of these are 'murder', which is the unrestrained killing of one member of society by another. All of the above are deliberately controlled by a mass of more or less formal rules - usually, the State eventually arrogates to itself the sole right to killing.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Asiaprod

Zillah wrote:

The Aztecs and Carthaginians had lots of human sacrifice integral to their society.
Its all relative

Some Indian Casts still expect the wife of the deceased to immolate herself on her husband's pyre.
As you said, it's all relative.

Zillah

"Sati" I think is called.

Scofflaw wrote:

Pharaonic Egypt, for the Pharaohs only.

Uh, morality also exists on a smaller scale...

Why must something be accepted on a societal level before you'll consider it to be "morality"? A murderer thinks its ok for him to kill people. His mother might think its fine to lie to the police to hide him. The cop thinks they should both be shoved in prison. A fundamentalist muslim might have no problem killing infidels.

Unless you can describe a set of moral principles that are universally accepted, or decide that one of them is objectively right and everything else is wrong, then you have to accept that morality is a relative concept.

Sati burned herself in defiance of her father
unless sati has now become a term instead of just a name

Zillah

It is. It originally was used to refer to a Hindu woman keeping herself "pure" after the death of her husband. Then it came to be used to refer to the rather extreme measure of incinerating herself...

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_%28practice%29

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

Uh, morality also exists on a smaller scale...

Why must something be accepted on a societal level before you'll consider it to be "morality"? A murderer thinks its ok for him to kill people. His mother might think its fine to lie to the police to hide him. The cop thinks they should both be shoved in prison. A fundamentalist muslim might have no problem killing infidels.

Scofflaw wrote:

Oddly, virtually no society promotes incest

No mention, by me, of morality, or of it being only social. Only the observation that virtually no society promotes incest.

Zillah wrote:

Unless you can describe a set of moral principles that are universally accepted, or decide that one of them is objectively right and everything else is wrong, then you have to accept that morality is a relative concept.

Scofflaw wrote:

Ooh...moral relativism!

You're full of ginger this morning! There's no comment there either way on whether morality is relative or not!

I haven't decided whether to take up the challenge or not, because I am largely a moral relativist. However, I am also a utilitarian, so it's a bit tempting....

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Hmm. Observationally, of course, morality is a social or individual construct.

Are you suggesting that this: (a) merely is the case (in which case I don't disagree) ;(b) should be the case; or (c) must be the case?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

A.


And I thought you were claiming it wasn't relative... you certainly gave that impression.

Aww. I like arguing...

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

A.


And I thought you were claiming it wasn't relative... you certainly gave that impression.

Aww. I like arguing...

No! I'm....shocked.....really. Don't like it myself at all, of course...

Oh well - option A hardly offers much scope for argument. How disappointing.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ScumLord

Even if something consciously created the universe, it doesnt mean that something has any interaction with it now,maybe it created itself. What does science hypothesise about the creation of the universe?
I have been getting the feeling that everything in the universe is predestined right down to our thoughts and ability to change our destiny is an illusion,

That's the way I think of it too, that the universe was started but needed no up keep. I've had this argument before on here. I don't think everything's predetermined though. I think that the way the universe is now was always likely from the very beginning, galaxies and planets would form some planets would be suited to life because of their location but it wasn't destined to end up exactly like it is now. If you started it all over again everything might be slightly different but planets would still form and some would be suited to life. If there was a creator he'd know this when he set it up, presumedly.


All that does matter is that it's here and it's great.

Zillah

Scumlord, get back off topic!

robindch

> Ooh...moral relativism!

As Zillah says, it's the only way to go! Ever notice the irony in the pope demanding respect for his beliefs, while at the same time rabbiting on about how moral relativism will be the death of us all?

> Oddly, virtually no society promotes incest or murder as a 'good' thing,

Can't say much about incest, rumors about Alabama and Kentucky notwithstanding, but ritual murder certainly seems to be more common than most people think. In addition to sati mentioned above, the murder of women who have 'dishonored' their families is common in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. In the USA, the ritual murder of men on death row is praised as justice, as are the activities of the lads in Chop Chop Square in Riyadh.

However, I will claim that it's worth looking into developing a set of ethical guidelines (for want of a better phrase) which are based upon minimizing the economic risk and cost of transactions, and permitting everybody to do whatever they want to, as long as it doesn't stop you doing what you want to. And that's certainly open to investigation within a scientific framework.

And once you come up with a system, perhaps then moral relativism can be thrown away and we can all stick to the one ethical framework and damn everybody else! Can we have an argument about this?

Son Goku

ScumLord wrote:

I don't think everything's predetermined though. I think that the way the universe is now was always likely from the very beginning, galaxies and planets would form some planets would be suited to life because of their location but it wasn't destined to end up exactly like it is now. If you started it all over again everything might be slightly different but planets would still form and some would be suited to life.

To add to this, the fact that the universe isn't predetermined is what lead to the formation of galaxies. Without the inhomogenities/irregularities introduced by QM's randomness, the universe would have ended up as a featureless soup.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> Ooh...moral relativism!

As Zillah says, it's the only way to go! Ever notice the irony in the pope demanding respect for his beliefs, while at the same time rabbiting on about how moral relativism will be the death of us all?

Actually, he was only observing that it is the case.

robindch wrote:

> Oddly, virtually no society promotes incest or murder as a 'good' thing,

Can't say much about incest, rumors about Alabama and Kentucky notwithstanding, but ritual murder certainly seems to be more common than most people think. In addition to sati mentioned above, the murder of women who have 'dishonored' their families is common in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. In the USA, the ritual murder of men on death row is praised as justice, as are the activities of the lads in Chop Chop Square in Riyadh.

Sigh. I never said it wasn't - I said no society promotes it. And I don't include judicial and quasi-judicial (honour or other ritualised) killings as murder, because they are controlled and hedged about with restrictions.

robindch wrote:

However, I will claim that it's worth looking into developing a set of ethical guidelines (for want of a better phrase) which are based upon minimizing the economic risk and cost of transactions, and permitting everybody to do whatever they want to, as long as it doesn't stop you doing what you want to. And that's certainly open to investigation within a scientific framework.

And once you come up with a system, perhaps then moral relativism can be thrown away and we can all stick to the one ethical framework and damn everybody else! Can we have an argument about this?

I'd be up for that.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tar.Aldarion

Son Goku wrote:

To add to this, the fact that the universe isn't predetermined is what lead to the formation of galaxies. Without the inhomogenities/irregularities introduced by QM's randomness, the universe would have ended up as a featureless soup.

Would you care to go deeper into that?
Or at least provide a link about QM being random etc.
So Quantum mechanics is probabilistic rather than deterministic then, what is the proof of that?
If we are part of a multiverse does that not make our universe deterministic?

Son Goku

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Would you care to go deeper into that?
Or at least provide a link about QM being random etc.
So Quantum mechanics is probabilistic rather than deterministic then, what is the proof of that?
If we are part of a multiverse does that not make our universe deterministic?

Quantum Mechanics is random, because for systems prepared under the same conditions in the same environment, completely different results are obtained. Although perhaps the best demonstration of it is Bell's experiment or the Quantum Zeno effect.
Quick Explanation
Deeper Explanation.
Bell's Experiment.

To be honest I think the discovery of these two effects rank near/at evolution in terms of contributing to our understanding of the world.

Zombrex

Ok, I read all about Bell's experiement and how it showed that locality is not a hard and fast rule with QM.

Just to fill you in on what I think I understand, locality is the concept that an event at some point in space cannot effect objects around it faster than the time it takes for the information (light, radiation, gravity, heat etc) created by that event to propogate through space to the other objects, and the speed this can happen has an upper limit of the speed of light. So nothing can effect anything else around it faster than the speed of light.

So if you had a big stick that stretched from the Earth to Pluto, and you pulled on one end, it would still take 10 hours for the other end of the stick to actually move. Or, if the sun explodes the fastest information (ie light) from it can effect anything around it is the speed of light, and it would take 10 hours for someone on Pluto to actually realise the sun had exploded (realise being cooked to a crisp in an instant).

But Bell showed through an experiement that attempting to observe the spin of an electron will not only alter the spin itself, but this alteration will also some how effect the spin of another electron somewhere else faster than would be possible for some information being emitted from the electron to propograte through space and effect the other electron.

The concept of locality therefore breaks down at the quantum level. Though we don't actually know why.

Not 100% though how randomness comes into play with all this though.

Son Goku

Wicknight wrote:

What you said.

Okay basically Bell's experiments mean that either:
(a)The world is random.
or
(b)The world is non-local.

A lot of Physicists prefer to stick with (a) because it is backed up by the Quantum Zeno effect and by the fact that systems which start off the same, in the same environment, can end up completely different. However the full implications of (b) are way weirder than (a). I suppose I can't be strict and say the world is random, but if it isn't random, then the world is a very strange place.

Zombrex

Oh right, ok. So randomness is a possible explination for the effects being observed in Bell's experiment, the other being non-locality, which causes a lot more problems and headaches than randomness.

Who said QM was confusing?

BTW QM seems to be a great example of how science is prepared to change or adapt theories (radically in some ways) if they don't hold true experiment or observation. I would love to know what the Creationists think of that, considering they constantly drone on about how science is refusing to drop the dogma of evolution because of the "Great Atheist Conspiricy"

Tar.Aldarion

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Would you care to go deeper into that?
Or at least provide a link about QM being random etc.
So Quantum mechanics is probabilistic rather than deterministic then, what is the proof of that?
If we are part of a multiverse does that not make our universe deterministic?

Well it's all based on working with probabilities ie born's probability thingy and normalisation etc...

lazylad

If you think about how it began enough, the shallowness of being born and dying just doesnt seem enough to justify life and what happens before and after. The universal existence is not as shallow as life or death, yet we are part of the mystery of the universe.

Zombrex

The "shallowness of life and death" ... what are you blubbering on about

Oh, he is banned .. why do I always miss the nut cases?

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

The "shallowness of life and death" ... what are you blubbering on about

Oh, he is banned .. why do I always miss the nut cases?

Cheer up...you'll always have JC.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Asiaprod

Wicknight wrote:

Oh, he is banned .. why do I always miss the nut cases?

I'll PM you when the next one appears;)

Tar.Aldarion

Son Goku wrote:

Quantum Mechanics is random, because for systems prepared under the same conditions in the same environment, completely different results are obtained. Although perhaps the best demonstration of it is Bell's experiment or the Quantum Zeno effect.
Quick Explanation
Deeper Explanation.
Bell's Experiment.

To be honest I think the discovery of these two effects rank near/at evolution in terms of contributing to our understanding of the world.

Sorry about the slow reply, exams! (Just out of Electromagnetic Theory.)
Thanks for replying. The only problem that I have with calling QM 'random' is that, I'm not sure that it is. If we don't understand something then, that does not make it random to me. I would think that the Quantum theories would jsut not be complete, other variables etc. Can we truly say something is in the exactsame environment when an observation takes place?
I'm not saying that I know that it is not random, but I think we can't say either way.
I suppose, I woiuld prefer to prove something is not random, rather than it is...

Why not take a concrete example or two?

1. What does science tell us we should do if we are offered a bribe to allow a crime to take place?

2. What does science tell us we should do if our wife's cousin starts coming on to us?

Microscopes at the ready...

cordially,
Scofflaw

I laughed.

Son Goku

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Sorry about the slow reply, exams! (Just out of Electromagnetic Theory.)
Thanks for replying. The only problem that I have with calling QM 'random' is that, I'm not sure that it is. If we don't understand something then, that does not make it random to me. I would think that the Quantum theories would jsut not be complete, other variables etc. Can we truly say something is in the exactsame environment when an observation takes place?
I'm not saying that I know that it is not random, but I think we can't say either way.
I suppose, I woiuld prefer to prove something is not random, rather than it is...

Well the whole genius of Bell and why I think he ranks near Einstein in terms of physical thinkers is that he reduced any possible Classical Theory and any possible Quantum Theory to one basic consequence/statement.
In essence any classical (local and deterministic) theory says "X" and any non-classical theory says "Y".
What X actually says is rather involved, but the point is that "X" isn't experimentally confirmed, it fails as a hypothesis, however "Y" succeeds. Therefore any classical theory is fundamentally incorrect and cannot match nature. The only recourse is that nature is non-classical and negates either determinism or locality.
So we either have a random world governed by QM or a non-local world which is most of the time indistinguishable from QM. Again most people go with QM because it is so successful.
Personally I'd find it hard to understand how a theory which makes such explicit probabilistic assumptions could be correct unless the world was random.

Of course it is possible that QM is just a statistical theory for an underlying structure (like statistical mechanics), but:
(a)QM wasn't created with the intention of being a statistical approximation, like statistical mechanics was. For it to end up accidentally being the statistical approximation of an underlying structure would be unusual.
(b)That structure will have to be non-local, which is way weirder than mere randomness, in my opinion, others might think differently.