atheism vs theism II

So this is my second blog. My intention this time was to discuss ethics and scientific knowledge but I think I will leave ethics till next time because there are quite a few things I want to cover. I want to begin by answering a number of challenges and attacks I have been given either on this site or in general. The first is a rather bizarre claim I have heard recently. The general idea is that I have two options: either I must believe that we as humans see reality as it is (an analogy would be a mirrored reflection of whats out there) or that the reality we construct is purely mental and the language that we use to communicate is not based on things that are actually "out there". The problems with the individual making this claim are several. The first is he's ignoring option number 3: That yes we don't see reality AS IT IS but that language is a tool to capture something about reality. No matter how many dimensions you can come up with or how far from "the truth" we really are, the reality we see is a combination of what is out there and the interpretation of our brains and use of our language. It doesn't make any sense to say it has to be one way or the other. The next claim is one regarding creativity. This claim attempts to compare the creativity of scientists such as Einstein to the endless childish speculation and fantasizing of the religious and even some non religious. This is really one of the most redicolous claims I've heard in quite a long time. Sure there is no doubt that scientists need to be creative, but they have a framework with which they expand that creativity into actual productivity. The person making this claim really just doesn't understand the way in which science works. It's not as if physicists all sit together in a circle around the room day dreaming about how nice the universe would be if it was one way or another. This invidual forgets or maybe just doesn't understand the meaning of research, calculations, experimentations, etc that drives science foward. That drives an initial speculation or what sounds like a fantastic idea to actual theory..to scientific law. To think that it is possible to "endlessly play with equations" is simply not to know any better. Now I don't claim to be an expert in regards to science by any means. There are a lot of things I don't yet understand and need to learn. There may even be particular problems with science I don't yet fully understand or am not aware of. But the point is that science is still the best thing we got and that more often than not people (especially some religious people) very arrogantly make redicolous claims about science or the scientific method when in reality they understand very little about it. The next claim I think is probably one of the stupidest I will mention in this blog. It divides into two parts: 1) Because there are many things yet to be discovered about the universe, this somehow gives credence to the idea of miracles, spirits, resurrections, virgin births of certain people, the ability to see into the future, and the idea that that all of us have a kind of "aura" behind us that only some can detect because they are in some kind of superior mental connection with the universe. That's one hell of a non sequitor if I've ever heard one. Not only it is an umbelievably stupid jump from one idea to another but I really do find it intellectually dishonest. Any scientist will tell you that there is so much we don't understand about the universe. But to take that fact and build all kinds of fantastical beliefs and to think that it's possible for events to magically occur without an explanation is childish at best. The fact is that we're not dealing with two equally legitimate approaches to truth: one is legitimate while the other works only when you allow non sequitors to occur. This whole argument is easily comparable to a "god of the gaps" line of argument. Whenever an explanation is lacking, the solution for these people is to just say "god did it" or just throw some kind of magic in there. Evolution hasn't yet explained where concience arose: it was God's hand. We don't have an experimental scientific explanation (though there is work being made such as the superstring theory) to why the universe seems finely tuned (something I will return to later on) : Ah, because God made it that way. And so on and so fourth. And then they call atheists closed minded..how many times does the god of the gaps argument have to be refuted before they understand? How many times have intellectually serious people have done the work in trying to "understand" and have found explanations that had nothing to do with a celestial power? And yet as long as there are things left to explain, many religious people will cling to that fact and even worse think that they are intelligent and honest in doing so. 2) The second part is the idea that because we don't currently have an explanation to how language arose there must be a miracolous or supernatural explanation that goes outside the reach of science. All of the same criticisms I just mentioned belong with this idea too, I don't need to repeat myself. Okay, I've dealt enough with pointless speculation and painfully irrational jumps. I want to discuss something I find much more intresting. Certain philosophical problems that seem to arise when dealing with quantum physics and relativity. Once again I think the problem is a lack of understanding of what these theories are actually saying. For now, I'll focus on one of the questions: It seems as though quantum physics is suggesting that a particle can be in multiple places at the same time. How could this be? It seems to be a logical fallacy. Well my response is the following: I don't believe that is what the theory is actually saying. Quantum mechanics describes how the world behaves at microscopic length scales where electrons and protons are resolved. Instead of talking about the properties and behavior of electrons and protons, let’s pretend that macroscopic objects, like a ping pong ball, behave like quantum mechanical electrons and protons. Of course, a ping pong ball cannot behave this way but it is useful to think that it does for illustrative purposes. Imagine that the ping pong ball can be either soft or hard and it can be either black or white. In our macroscopic world on planet earth, we are used to things like ping pong balls having fixed properties in space as time goes by. This seemingly innocuous statement is fundamentally flawed in principle but an acceptable description for practical purposes. For example, I can use Newtonian mechanics to determine where the ping pong ball will be as time goes by if I launch it at an angle theta with respect to the floor at a speed of 10 meters per second. Now let’s go back and imagine that the ping pong ball behaves as if it were a tiny proton or electron and try to measure its properties in time. Imagine that we measure its color and find that it is black. Now we know that the ping pong ball is black and remains black as time goes by. However, we would be forced to conclude (by a host of experimental evidence) that the ping pong ball is neither hard nor soft. In fact, the ping pong ball is in a state in which it has a chance of being soft or hard in the event that a measurement of its hardness were to occur. Another way of saying this is that the ping pong ball is in a state of superposition of hard and soft with 50 % chance for each. Therefore, the ping pong ball is black and in a superposition state of hard and soft. This doesn’t mean that the ping pong ball is either hard or soft with 50 % chance for each. It means exactly what I said, i.e. that the ping pong ball is in a superposition of hard and soft, some kind of ghost state in which the property of hardness is not specified in terms of one or the other, but nonetheless completely specified, exactly specified, as a superposition of both states. It is not a question of ignorance (as many people that don’t understand the theory claim) The superposition state is everything there is to know about the ping pong ball’s property of hardness as time goes by until a new measurement is made. Now I'm very aware that it can be hard for the mind to grasp such an idea. I too find myself confused as to what exactly physicists are saying when they use words like "ghost state" but the point is that at least some of these apparent philosophical problems derive from a misunderstanding of the conclusions derived from the theory. Now to return to the example I was using, Assume that a new measurement is made at some later time, but now of hardness, not of color. You could find a hard ping pong ball or a soft ping pong ball, with 50% chance for each. Assume you find the ping pong ball to be hard. Then you have changed the state of the ping pong ball to one in which it is a hard ping pong ball and you might be tempted to claim that you now have a hard, black, ping pong ball. That would be wrong. It would be incompatible with the experimental evidence. The correct description that you are forced to by the experimental evidence is that the ping pong ball is hard but in a superposition state of black and white. In other words, the ping pong ball will continue to be hard as time goes by, after this second measurement is made, but it no longer has a fixed property of color. It is now in a quantum superposition of being white and black. Again, it’s not that one doesn’t know whether it is black or white (as many people that don’t understand the theory claim). The fact of the matter is that the ping pong ball will continue to be hard and in a ghost state of black and white until a new measurement is made. The bottom line here is that in the macroscopic world in which we see the world (i.e. on the scale of houses and automobiles), things seem to have fixed properties such as color and hardness that persist in time. There are no such things as quantum superpositions of properties. You can show from the calculations of quantum theory that these superposition states for large objects such as cars, always involve one of the many possibilities to have an overwhelming probability. In other words, the superposition state of the car would involve a 99.99999999999999999999999 percent chance that the car is green and a 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 chance that it was of some other colors. In practical terms, then, the difference between the superposition state of color for the car and the state in which the color is actually measured, both give the same answer: Green! Therefore, we are not aware of quantum superposition at the macroscopic level. Once again the problem arises when the fairly typical mistake of trying to analyze the quantum superposition state in terms of our Newtonian viewpoint is made. You might imagine thinking that quantum theory is telling us that the ping pong ball, for example, is both hard and soft at the same time! But, as I mentioned above, that is an incorrect interpretation of the state of the ping pong ball that results from thinking of quantum superposition in classical Newtonian terms. The ping pong ball is neither hard nor soft when it is in a superposition state of hardness. You could construct a superposition state that involves position (say, for an electron). Then you would have to say that the position of the electron is neither here nor there, but in a quantum superposition of here and there. But, again, it would be incorrect to state that the electron, according to quantum theory, is both here and there at the same time. The fact of the matter is, that quantum theory and relativity are telling us that space, time and properties of things in space and time are not in principle those of Newtonian theory. But, since we have evolved to see the world according to Newtonian theory (no wonder that was the first description of the physical world until accurate experiments could be conducted), it is difficult for people to understand that in principle this is not the way the world is. In short, the only way you end up with a contradiction in principle in quantum theory, is if you ASSUME that the world behaves in principle as we are used to seeing it. I think I've wrote enough for the time being...I will discuss quantum physics further in the future and hopefully it won't be such a long time till I'm able to write on here once again.