Comments by Oystein Elgaroy

151. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293780 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 30, 2008 at 5:42 am

Comment #293774 by decius

Do you doubt the divine nature of Feynman? That's blasphemy.

There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.

152. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293766 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 30, 2008 at 4:44 am

Comment #293748 by Dianelos Georgoudis

You summarily dismiss all alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation and portray the situation as being a choice between Niels Bohr or God. I hope you base your arrogance on more than the books you have mentioned.

But in this case I have already suggested a reason: perhaps God chose quantum mechanics because S/He wanted to make certain that when we reached the stage of scientific knowledge we wouldn't be misled into believing that a naturalistic understanding of reality is viable.

Well, I think it is fair to say that this has not been a very successful strategy.

:-) It doesn't necessarily. I think we can all relax and agree that one way or the other all religions carry a heavy load of mythology. This doesn't imply that there is no truth in the fundamental premises of religion of course, it just implies that religious institutions are too dogmatic and traditionalist for their own good.

So which parts of, say, the Athanasian creed do you accept and why?

153. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293744 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 30, 2008 at 1:56 am

Comment #293739 by Steve Zara

Oh dear. He has tried to get to most of those, you know! So much pointless effort....

I should have known... It is amazing what one can prove starting from nonsense.

154. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293740 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 30, 2008 at 1:47 am

Comment #293733 by Brian English

I agree. I just find it incredible that he does not seem to realize it.

155. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293732 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 30, 2008 at 1:34 am

DG,

I must be enormously stupid, because I just don't see why quantum mechanics should be a problem for ontological naturalism. Our kind of physical reality is the only one we know of, and in this one quantum mechanics seems to be a good description of how matter behaves under certain conditions.

Of course a theist can "explain" quantum mechanics, because God can, apparently, do anything. But why did God choose quantum mechanics?

And how on earth is all this sophistry going to take you to a trinitarian God, the burning bush, the virgin birth, the resurrection, and vicarious redemption? I am fed up with people dressing up their belief in myths originating from a superstitious past in the language of philosophy and modern physics.

156. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293633 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 29, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Comment #293631 by Brian English

Penrose's book is definitly hard for people like me, but probably a walk in the park for Oystein and obviosly a doddle for Dianelos...

Penroses's book was not "a walk in the park" for me.

Speaking of physicists and their books, Dianelos should try "The meaning of it all" by Richard Feynman just to see what intellectual honesty and lucid writing is all about.

157. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293571 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 29, 2008 at 8:58 am

Comment #293566 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Having said that, why do you think these restrictions apply to God? It's not like God thinks algorithmically.

theism's explanations must comport with its thesis that reality is based on the principle of personal perfection (no "mysterious are God's ways" is allowed).

Based on these quotes, I look forward to reading your exposition of how God thinks.

158. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293553 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 29, 2008 at 8:12 am

Comment #293534 by decius

My thoughts exactly.

159. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #293452 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 29, 2008 at 1:24 am

Comment #293434 by Dianelos Georgoudis

But this result is irrelevant to a deistic God, who by definition possesses unlimited intellectual powers

That is just wonderful. The problem is solved by defining it away.

Have you got any idea how rude your arguments sound to scientists and philosophers who work hard to gain REAL understanding? Can't understand fine tuning? Goddidit. Does the mind-body problem baffle your mind? Goddidit. Is quantum mechanics too much of a mystery for you? Goddidit.

All these great unsolved problems are the fuel of science. We want to understand. This usually means hard work with meagre results. Your completely arbitrary postulate of an incoherent concept as the solution to all problems leads to no real understanding and is an insult to science and reason.

160. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #285490 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 17, 2008 at 8:41 am

Comment #285478 by Cartomancer

John Blund

Is this the name of a real 12th century theologian? In Norway John Blund is a small bearded chap who makes children fall asleep at night by sprinkling stardust on them.

161. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #284489 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 15, 2008 at 9:52 am

Comment #284487 by phil rimmer

Clinging to the cool white bowl, rock steady in a querelous world, an Oh-God is a unit of liquid remorse.

This provides new understanding of what theologians mean when they say that the Spirit emanates from the Father and the Son.

162. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #284475 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 15, 2008 at 9:14 am

Comment #284474 by mordacious1

How many Jesuses are there in a God?

163. Interview with John Lennox

Comment #284450 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 15, 2008 at 7:55 am

There's going to be problems in the Vatican if the EU tries to standardise God Units.

I am sure they will insist on using Natural Units where they take Planck's constant = Newton's constant= speed of light = God = 1.

164. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #283449 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 13, 2008 at 1:39 pm

Comment #283428 by Bonzai

That is very different from saying we take the multiverse as default because it is "simpler".

Well, I don't take the multiverse as default. Some models of inflation will give you a multiverse, some won't. Those who do are not more complicated than those who don't, so based on simplicity there is little to go by. Present observations seem to favour inflation, but are not good enough to pick out the right model. We also need to understand the theoretical aspects better.

165. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #283436 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 13, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Comment #283423 by decius

What worries me, though, is that Wooter and Oystein are never seen posting at the same time and place.

I am sure Wooter will be very offended by your suggestion.

166. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #283403 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 13, 2008 at 1:13 pm

In a sense we already have good reason to think that we live in a multiverse because we have pretty good evidence that the universe extends far beyond the observable universe. And the conditions in those far-away regions may be very different from ours. For example, the Higgs field may have a different value, giving rise to different particle masses.

We may some day find evidence for the kind of multiverse produced in some models of inflation. Direct evidence may come from observable effects of very early collisions between bubbles that left traces in e.g. the cosmic microwave background. Strong indirect evidence may come if observations should turn out to favour this type of inflationary scenario.

167. Anti-religion agenda among social media users

Comment #281989 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 11, 2008 at 9:30 am

Comment #281980 by MPhil

A brilliant atheist philosopher who wrote "The Miracle of Theism". I cannot recommend this book enough.

I finished it today. It is a brilliant book. I am going to read his "Ethics - Inventing right and wrong" too.

168. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280861 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 8, 2008 at 3:28 pm

Comment #280859 by Brian English

The GTOE is just around the corner. It turns out that the basic building blocks of nature are not strings. Everything is just different manifestations of a fundamental particle called the Elgaron. To detect it scientists will have to build huge tanks and fill them with beer.

169. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280852 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 8, 2008 at 2:45 pm

Comment #280755 by j.mills

I was especially startled to read in there that the cosmic microwave background radiation effectively provides a rest frame in which we can measure absolute velocity. This sounded like relativistic heresy, and I'm still recovering from the shock and absorbing the implications. (I'd welcome your comments, Oystein!)

Well, the theories of relativity as I understand them merely say that the laws of physics should be the same in all reference frames. This leaves open the possibility that there may be one or more reference frames where the description of the system under study is simpler than in others.

170. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280724 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 8, 2008 at 6:12 am

Comment #280712 by Dr Doctor

The point you make is important. Few observations in cosmology make any sense without being interpreted within a theoretical framework. Most of the time we assume that space is homogeneous and isotropic, and often we also have to add the assumption that gravity is described by general relativity. This is the source of, e.g., the uncertainty about whether the "accelerated expansion" is evidence for dark energy, or for an inhomogeneous universe. The fact that measurements need to be interpreted in a given model is trivial, I guess, but it is especially important in cosmology and often forgotten.

171. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280707 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 8, 2008 at 5:37 am

Laurie, thanks. I have the same effect on my students, but they don't seem to appreciate it as much as you.

172. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280701 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 8, 2008 at 5:12 am

Comment #280698 by Dr Doctor

I understand your worry about circularity. Measuring the curvature of the universe can be (and should be!) done in several different ways. One way is to use the fact that general relativity links the curvature of space to the density. By measuring the density, we can therefore infer the curvature. Another way is to use objects of known intrinsic size, and measure their apparent angular size along with their redshifts. From the intrinsic size and the redshift we can predict the angular size the object should appear to have for a given cosmological model and compare to the observed angular size.

The best measurements of the curvature of space we have today are consistent with flat space. Of course that does not exclude that the universe may have an interesting topology. After all, the surface of a doughnut is also a flat space.

173. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280694 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 8, 2008 at 4:29 am

Comment #280691 by Wosret

In my previous post I assumed that space is homogeneous and isotropic as in the standard cosmological models. But on the assumption that general relativity is valid the speed of light will always be the same. You just have to be careful with what you mean by "the speed of light". In the general theory of relativity the speed of light always means as measured in a region of spacetime small enough to be considered flat.

An example: the most distant objects we can see today are at a distance of approximately 40 billion light years. Light from these objects have travelled for about 14 billion years before reaching us. Hence we infer an avereage speed for this light which is almost three times the normal speed of light. There is no paradox here because this average speed is calculated from quantities measured over regions with significant spacetime curvature (the crucial factor is the fact that space expands while the light is travelling towards us). Measured in the proper way, the speed of light always has the standard value.

174. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280690 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 8, 2008 at 4:02 am

The crucial factor that determines whether the universe has an event horizon or not is not whether there are points where the expansion rates exceeds the speed of light, but whether the exansion is decelerating or accelerating. If the expansion rate is decelerating, then even if light started at a distance from us where space expanded faster than light, as time goes on the rate of expansion will drop below the speed of light, and the light ray will eventually reach us. But if the expansion rate accelerate there will be a limit to how far away the light ray can start and have time to reach us before the expansion rate becomes superluminal.

175. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280459 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 7, 2008 at 2:37 pm

This is a duplicate post. The first is at:

I thought I had seen something about this here before. Good to see that my memory hasn't failed me completely yet despite my age.

176. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280452 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 7, 2008 at 2:24 pm

David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University, echoed the sentiment.

"Until these results are reanalyzed by another group, I have strong doubts about the validity of the conclusions of this paper," he wrote in an email.

Sensible man.

177. Bad Faith Awards 2008: Vote now

Comment #279841 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 6, 2008 at 1:05 pm

They all deserve the award, but my vote went to Adnan Oktar.

178. Fred Phelps's son is an atheist: Running from hell

Comment #277340 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 3, 2008 at 12:37 pm

In the church my parents took me to until I was ten hell was a common theme in the sermons. I can testify to the fact that it is child abuse, it has taken me a long time to get over the fear and anxiety installed in me by those vicious lies.

179. For many evangelicals, it will be the end of the world if Obama wins

Comment #277006 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 3, 2008 at 12:31 am

Comment #277002 by Brian English

I take it Oystein that you're saying that we have evidence of a multiverse? Or perhaps saying that the evidence is conformable with what we would expect if a multiverse conformed to our expectations?

I would not go so far as to say that we have evidence for a multiverse, only it is not by construction unobservable.

180. For many evangelicals, it will be the end of the world if Obama wins

Comment #277001 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 3, 2008 at 12:23 am

Comment #276999 by Brian English

If you're proposing that the multiverse exists, why don't numbers exist? Steve was adamant that unless you can demonstrate a mechanism by which non-spatiotemporal entities can interact with space time than you're talking nonsense. A multiverse doesn't interact with our space-time, so therefore.....

http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5128

181. Beware - creationism's march will go on

Comment #276711 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 2, 2008 at 1:01 pm

Comment #276703 by Steve Zara

The time to weed out students is before they take the first exams of their science degrees. If they are just putting on a pretence of supporting science, they should be kicked out.

Maybe they will just switch to physics. At least here in Norway, of the few outspoken creationists with science degrees, an alarmingly high proportion are physicists.

182. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276215 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 3:22 pm

MPhil,

I agree that the arguments of Plantinga et al. deserve detailed scrutiny. I guess I am somewhat biased by having been a Christian until fairly recently. I know what kind of god these guys really believe in, and the kind of deity they claim to establish by their arguments is a far cry from that. The god of their arguments is not the god of their faith, and I guess that is why I cannot take their conclusions seriously.

183. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276205 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 3:04 pm

Comment #276201 by Steve Zara

Good point. As a curious fact, a general relativist I know refuses to take the Schwarzschild solution seriously as a physical solution of the theory because of the singularity it containts.

184. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276193 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 2:37 pm

Comment #276190 by Mark Jones

The last chapter is included in "The portable atheist".

185. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276187 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 2:26 pm

Comment #276173 by Steve Zara

My feeling is that we give them too much credit.

I tend to view the various arguments for God's existence much like the numerous "proofs" that 0=1. It is intuitively clear that they must be wrong, but it can be a challenge to discover exactly where the problem is buried.

Lane Craig is someone who obviously gets too much credit. I lost what little respect I had for him after reading the chapter in "Reasonable faith" where he explains how Christians through the holy spirit know that their faith is true. This justifies them in holding on to their faith even when confronted with convincing arguments for the non-existence of God.

186. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276135 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 11:34 am

Comment #276130 by Mark Jones

But the whole point of the fine tuning argument is that it is *fine* tuned, not slightly-fine tuned, so I don't see this as a *good* defence of this particular argument. But I'm sure the faithful would buy it. :-)

I agree. It concedes the point that the argument is not persuasive, but then proceeds to make a virtue out of that very fact.

187. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276124 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 11:16 am

Comment #276122 by Mark Jones

This seems like a good angle. If we can demonstrate that we could create a much more suitable universe (I'm not asking much!), it blows the argument out the water, doesn't it?

I think one way of countering it would be to argue that God did not want to make his existence too obvious. He wants us to choose freely to believe in him, not to be forced by evidence to do so.

188. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276118 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 10:58 am

Comment #276117 by decius

Reading Stenger's books will never be the same again after seeing that picture.

189. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276109 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 10:26 am

Comment #276098 by Mark Jones

I think there are several things that should be said against the fine-tuning argument before introducing a multiverse:

1) No proper calculation of the properties of a universe with constants different from ours has ever been done. This is actually a huge task, involving everything from the large-scale properties of these alternative universes to calculating the properties of nuclei, atoms and molecules in them. And you have to vary all the constants.

And actually, some of the constants are not chosen optimally. Structure formation would have been easier in a universe without dark energy than it is in ours. If the Fine-Tuner wanted to optimize the probability of organic life arising somewhere, he should have gone for an Einstein-de Sitter universe istead of LambdaCDM.

2) We don't have a fundamental theory to tell us the prior probability distributions for the constants of nature. People tend to assume flat distributions, so that a priori all values are equally likely. But we don't know that.

3) We don't even know how many fundamental parameters there are. For example, as Victor Stenger points out in his books, the strengths of the four fundamental forces are not independent if our ideas of unification at high energies are correct.

4) Even if the fine-tuning is real, and the probability of this arising by chance is low, this tells us very little about the probability of the existence of a Fine Tuner. If F stands for fine tuning and N for naturalism, then the probability
P(F given N) is not the same as P(N given F). In other words, it does not follow automatically that the probability of naturalism is low. In order to make their case, advocates of a Fine Tuner have to come up with estimates of the probability of the existence of such an entity given what we know about the universe besides that it is fine tuned, and the probability that this entity would want to fine-tune the universe.

190. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276096 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 9:43 am

Comment #276092 by Steve Zara

However, I think there may be a slight flaw in this argument. Many Christians think that we are in the End Times, so why would they care if the Universe will be hostile to human life in 20 billion years?

That is true, but then they rely on revelation and have to supply independent evidence for the truth of the New Testament. There is nothing in nature to suggest that there is a special plan for humans.

191. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276090 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 9:22 am

Comment #276086 by Steve Zara

I think that is, at least implicitly, how the fine-tuning argument is used within Christian apologetics. They are not thinking about Boltzmann brains, but human life on Earth.

A lot of people think the multiverse is pure science fiction, so I think it is important to point other reasons why the fine-tuning argument is a bad one.

192. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276089 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 9:15 am

Comment #276081 by decius

During a previous debate with D'Souza, Hitch called the redshift "the problem of red light"

He has done this more than once. It is a shame, because it does not take much scientific knowledge to tear debaters like Turek and D'Souza to shreds.

193. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276085 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 9:05 am

Comment #276078 by Steve Zara

Organic life, perhaps, but surely other forms of life will always be able to make use of the potential for entropy to increase?

There is one suggestion that if the universe persists forever, "Bolzmann brains" may be the dominant form of intelligence.

You are, as usual, correct. But I think the point still stands: given the fact that organic life on our planet will only be an insignificant episode in the history of the Universe, it is preposterous to claim that the laws of physics were fine-tuned for our existence.

194. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #276076 by Oystein Elgaroy on November 1, 2008 at 8:20 am

I always enjoy listening to Hitchens, but I think he would have been a much better debater if he had a better grasp of science. The point he always makes regarding the fine tuning argument is a good one, though. The same laws and constants that allowed intelligent life to emerge in these backwaters of the cosmos also ensure that life will only be a brief episode in the history of the universe.

195. Teaching hate in UK schools

Comment #275772 by Oystein Elgaroy on October 31, 2008 at 3:24 pm

Comment #275764 by JAMCAM87

Of course I'm sure someone will now accuse me of communism. :)

Then I am a communist, too.

196. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #275471 by Oystein Elgaroy on October 31, 2008 at 8:20 am

Mphil,

I will send you a PM later. Right now I have to rush to catch the subway.

197. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #275468 by Oystein Elgaroy on October 31, 2008 at 8:16 am

Mphil,

yes I have been through a few of them, but not all. Right now I am suffering my way through "Reasonable Faith" by Lane Craig. He can at times be a bit annoying.

198. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #275459 by Oystein Elgaroy on October 31, 2008 at 7:56 am

MPhil,

your comments on this thread are brilliant. You are my favourite philopsopher!

199. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #274514 by Oystein Elgaroy on October 30, 2008 at 6:22 am

Contrary to this medieval theologians had argued that both space and time must have a beginning.

And on what evidence besides scripture? Augustine argued that time had a beginning, but that was to get around the awkward question of what God did before he created the universe. As far as I know Thomas Aquinas was agnostic about whether the universe had a beginning in time or not. Or rather, he saw good reasons for both points of view.

200. New Simonyi Chair appointed

Comment #274015 by Oystein Elgaroy on October 29, 2008 at 1:58 pm

Comment #274009 by Steve Zara

No gravitational wells in sight except for the psychological ones set up by university administration.
The cup is in the foreground because it is decorated with an excerpt from the notebooks of the mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. In the middle of a calculation he bursted out in a spontaneous prayer: "Our Father in heaven - give me bread and beer!".