Does God exist? (12 Viewers)

[Romeo Montague]

does









anything



















exist...?

 

[Riet]

Taco: how come god can come from nothing but the universe can't?

 

[Slidey]

I love how TacoTerrorist begs the question, then the asserts this means god exists. Excuse me, but what created God? God could create himself no more (or less) than the universe could. You've simply replaced one notion inconceivable to you as a human with another equally inconceivable notion which is just slightly more aesthetically appealing to your sense of order.

 

[KFunk]

One of the most beautiful examples of complexity theory, and mathematics in general, which I have found in real life is this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Textile_cone.JPG

The cone literally applies a cellular automata in the creation of its shell pattern.

For reference: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/CA_rule110s.png

Coolest thing I've seen all day (ranks 2nd for the week). I was familiar enough with cellular automata (thanks to your prior education, I'm sure) to pick it right away. Very, very awesome.

For another moment of geometrical excitement, see this article on hallucinatory neurophysics.

 

[Enteebee]

I love how TacoTerrorist begs the question, then the asserts this means god exists. Excuse me, but what created God? God could create himself no more (or less) than the universe could. You've simply replaced one notion inconceivable to you as a human with another equally inconceivable notion which is just slightly more aesthetically appealing to your sense of order.

haha good pick up. I'm kinda disappointed in him, I was hoping his disparaging remarks towards our conversations here meant he might have some great insights to offer... sadly it turns out he's just an ignorant and arrogant twerp.

 

[Slidey]

I mean, with all the above chat on the universe being non-deterministic, with radioactive decay randomly occurring, I think it's entirely valid to believe the universe capable of creating itself. We're not talking about the creation of stars and life here (fairly well understood, scientifically speaking), but of energy blooming spontaneously out of 'nothing' (superficially similar to radioactive decay spontaneously occurring without a cause).

In a universe in which causality is an approximation, do you really have to ask "what came before?"

 

[Captain Gh3y]

I mean, with all the above chat on the universe being non-deterministic, with radioactive decay randomly occurring, I think it's entirely valid to believe the universe capable of creating itself. We're not talking about the creation of stars and life here (fairly well understood, scientifically speaking), but of energy blooming spontaneously out of 'nothing' (superficially similar to radioactive decay spontaneously occurring without a cause).

In a universe in which causality is an approximation, do you really have to ask "what came before?"

i sort of mentioned before the many worlds interpretation of QM suggests that anything that can happen, will happen

or in terms of before time existing, everything that can be, is

so it's quite possible anything that could possibly spontaneously appear has, somewhere or another

 

[Slidey]

Coolest thing I've seen all day (ranks 2nd for the week). I was familiar enough with cellular automata (thanks to your prior education, I'm sure) to pick it right away. Very, very awesome.

For another moment of geometrical excitement, see this article on hallucinatory neurophysics.

That's awesome! Cheers. I love stuff that makes connections between statistics/optimisation/neural nets/etc and the human brain - specifically the individual behaviour of 'cells'/neurons and patterns which emerge on a global/holistic level.

 

[Enteebee]

In a universe in which causality is an approximation, do you really have to ask "what came before?"

I think that's the crux of it, there are some things for which we can't ask "what came before" as much as we'd like to due to assumptions human beings naturally make from our everyday observations. This makes sense and is exactly what you'd expect to solve the problem of endless regression. I'd liken this to arguments about consciousness... i.e. Cartesian theatre proposes a consciousness inside us like a little person inside our head, the question is then but where does his consciousness come from? If it's another even smaller person we face endless regression - Thus the solution can only be that consciousness must come from something unconscious.

So in our situation perhaps it is that wherever 'cause' came from, eventually it needs to be 'uncaused'... So the theists do have it right, it's just that it also unfortunately for them seems to apply well within our natural universe.

 

[Slidey]

i sort of mentioned before the many worlds interpretation of QM suggests that anything that can happen, will happen

or in terms of before time existing, everything that can be, is

so it's quite possible anything that could possibly spontaneously appear has, somewhere or another

It should be noted that the Many Worlds interpretation isn't necessarily correct, of course. It's more an attempt at reconciling determinism with QM. Of course, the way it does this doesn't violate physics, so it's worthy of interest.

Interesting theories are if we're in a consistent bang and crunch cycle, thermodynamics are going to put a stop to it at some point.

This is just a HYPOTHESIS

Even if the universe expands infinitely, we'll still be decomposed to vacuum energy when the force of gravity binding our component particles becomes weaker than the repulsive cosmological force due to the metric expansion of space. Sad panda.

An interesting scenario involving optimisation/tunnelling problems is vacuum decay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_decay

One scenario is that, rather than quantum tunnelling, a Particle accelerator, which produces very high energies in a very small area, could create sufficiently high energy density as to penetrate the barrier and stimulate the decay of the false vacuum to the lower energy vacuum. Hut and Rees,[9] however, have determined that because we have observed cosmic ray collisions at much higher energies than those produced in terrestrial particle accelerators, that these experiments will not, at least for the foreseeable future, pose a threat to our vacuum.

Darn tootin aleins meedlin with ma vacoom

 

[Captain Gh3y]

It should be noted that the Many Worlds interpretation isn't necessarily correct, of course. It's more an attempt at reconciling determinism with QM. Of course, the way it does this doesn't violate physics, so it's worthy of interest.

obviously it's just speculation, i'm more of a fan of Copenhagen myself anyway

but it opens up the possibility of different universes, some of which might have disappeared almost immediately, others expanding but never forming matter, and a few forming the range of objects & life we see in this one, and it does away with the "why are the constants fine-tuned" thing.

 

[KFunk]

That's awesome! Cheers. I love stuff that makes connections between statistics/optimisation/neural nets/etc and the human brain - specifically the individual behaviour of 'cells'/neurons and patterns which emerge on a global/holistic level.

Yo, I've been wanting to try to develop a solid theoretical understanding of neural networks (such as underlie that neurophysics research), formalism and all. Do you have any thoughts on where I would do well to start? (given that I have no computing background, but a good grasp of different formal logics, and knowledge of mathematics/physics which is only just beyond highschool level)

 

[Captain Gh3y]

oi chadd watch channel 7 rite now

 

[Slidey]

A good place to start would be Frontiers of Complexity for a holistic overview of neural nets as well as how they relate to all other aspects of complexity theory as well as many aspects of chemistry, biology, physics and neuroscience.

As for the mathematical/computational foundations of neural nets, I'm not sure, sorry. I didn't get to take any serious optimisation or AI courses before I left uni, but of course plan to next year when I return. But I'd hazard that courses on computational complexity theory (more-so the logic side of things than the algorithmic efficiency side), AI, or mathematical optimisation (especially things like evolutionary optimisation or tunnelling) would suffice.

Of further tangential interest is quantum neural nets, which are non-deterministic forms of neural nets (and of course equivalent to Universal Quantum Turing Machines). There's some weight behind the notion that these are how the human brain works. It, in a rather refreshing turn of events, brings us back to the idea of the quantum brain as a valid model.

Here's a nice introduction to quantum neural nets from a more mathematical/logical perspective: http://virtual01.lncc.br/~giraldi/qc/Quantum-Neural-Nets/Research/Research.html

But I fear it might require a more formal understanding of classical neural nets first. Have a look anyway. For such an understanding of classical neural nets:
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_96/journal/vol4/cs11/report.html
http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~lss/NNIntro/InvSlides.html
ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ.html

 

[KFunk]

Cheers Slidey, many thanks.

 

[Mojohi]

just a quick question. if u believe that things can be spontaneous..as in against determinism, does that mean that free choice can be possible, is that an option?

 

[Enteebee]

just a quick question. if u believe that things can be spontaneous..as in against determinism, does that mean that free choice can be possible, is that an option?

Well depends how you want to define free choice, but I'd say no because all it is really is an action reached through spontaneity.

 

[Mojohi]

Well depends how you want to define free choice, but I'd say no because all it is really is an action reached through spontaneity.

True. Ok that makes sense. I just cant possibly understand anything being spontaneous. In biology for example people used to think that diseases happened spontaneously. But we now know that that is impossible. It seems to work mathematically. But scientifically...

There are hidden variables which we do not understand. Like the Schrödinger equation

 

[Slidey]

It seems to work mathematically. But scientifically...

No. Science is based on maths.

There are hidden variables which we do not understand. Like the Schrödinger equation

No. Let me post it again for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem

Next time you post, make sure you actually read what people write.

 

[Riet]

Shroedinger's equation is fairly well understood.