My mind's in a knot... (Re: Who/what created God?)

As I understand it, we do not fully know that. There is no way, currently, of knowing "where" virtual particles get their energy? Especially since there is no unifying theory yet.Again, from what I have read, virtual particles are still "real" so they are a property of our 4D spacetime. Since the geometry of spacetime is just another name for what we experience as the gravitational field(as per GR), I believe the origin of their energy will have something to do with that. Thats just MHO, but thats what I gathered from what I have read, if I am wrong please point it out. They're where I see them. Before that, of course there is the probability factor, but is that really the part that is freaking you out? That they are only technically "there" when you measure them? I can see it being puzzling, but I don't think it takes me mentally where it takes you. Certain things are weird like that, im ok with it though. Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Technically it's been known for a while - from quantum fluctuations. Most of the mass of atoms comes from virtual particles which are pairs of "particles"(for lack of a better word) created in quantum fluctuations. If the LHC finds the theoretical Higgs boson(which scientists believe gives atoms the remaining missing mass through those same virtual particles), we will know that "everything" comes from nothing.It's good that you are picking up speed in this quantum weirdness because we are nearing "the wall" so i am sure you'll understand the additions i'll make to the previous diagram about the quantum world view as it creates our sensation of an existing classical world(out of nothing):Unknown/Mad scientists from the future/God/Consciousness/?? -- in a Non-local space(objectively non-existent) -- Quantum fluctuations(virtual particles give energy to->) -- Hamiltonian("something" - the Unknown selects the->) -- Wavefunction(that evolves through the TDSE to the->) -- Outcome(measurement - "particle", selection of alternate histories) -- Quantum system(macro world - e.g. onifre's human body)You cannot introduce the concept of time anywhere in the chain, but at the very end, where our sensation of existence is. And there are no particles until there is interaction. Until an interaction takes place, there are only possibilities, and possibilities are not partilces.So what is Life?If you have understood the chain, you'll be more confused than you previously were.So when you look at the stars - these are all quantum fluctuations in a non-local quantum space. Those virtual particles are all there is in our "world", and where do they come from? It seems you want to read the mind of God(or the mind of the unknown).So think about it, what is it that fools us that there is space out there, when a photon doesn't travel any distance and no time passes as it travels through the "universe" from its frame of reference? Or when a particlular wavefunction is selected out of all the possibilites throughout space instantaneously? Or when an electron is here and it's on Alpha Centauri a moment later?It's clear, "something" directs those quantum fluctuations into creating "objects"(appearances or "schaumkommen" as Schroedinger refers to them), incl. extremely sophisticated objects like humans. This cannot be chance, not all of us. There is no way in the fucking Hell, chance could create 20 billion humans(all that ever lived) through "random" quantum fluctuations. All this highly organised "information" that builds humans and the "universe" all the way up from the quantum fluctuation up to the realm of our existence is more than a gogool bits(according to Michio Kaku), that's more than 10^100 bits. Just the information in atoms of the 100 trillion cells in a human body, according to Anton Zeilinger, is about a thousand billion billion billion bits.There is no way. It's not chance. I think God could have done a better job sweeping his trails.And frankly, if something is nothing, there has to be something that accounts for the orderliness of our sensation. We have to assume that Max Tegmark, John Wheeler, Anton Zeilinger, Fred Wolf, Amit Goswami and other physicists are right and information in a mathematical structure is the essense of everything, everything in this "place" we call universe. I often refer to us as "consciousness" for lack of a better word, and what lies beyond it is the unknown. We are the icons on your desktop and we see ourselves(that's how we exist - if you have a good imagination, you'll get the picture of our existence), and we live in a special time where we can see beyond the illusion of the 5 senses that tell us that something exists into the nothing. The correct version is - nothing exists into the nothing but information and consciousness. Those "real" particles are created out of nothing into the nothing. And you cannot talk of space and time at the quantum realm. If you introduce space and time, you are saying relativity is wrong(unless you are talking about relativistic QM, eg Dirac's equation, which is imposing our illusional macro concepts in QM, but it works - otherwise there wouldn't be a universe for us to describe). IMO that's a big challenge before the future TOE, as some of those working on it believe it should be understandable to everyone.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

There's something more - current progress in all 5 versions of String Theory, as we have previously discussed, point to a Holographic universe(in as much as ST is correct of course). A holographic universe is a non-local universe, where you, me and everything else is appearances, schaumkommen and holograms, similar to the icons on your desktop. You can certainly think of us as projections separate in space, but in our essence we are all ONE.If a TOE is to be successful, it has to be non-local, because, sorry, there is no universe. Not in the way we've been told by our mums and dads. Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

I am stll researching all this. Rather fascinating though!Sorry, had to take my wife to the ER for a GI related issue last night. So I played hookie from work today to take care of her at home. As a result, I am reading up on all this holographic universe stuff. It is a lot to absorb. However, I don't argue things I do not understand yet so I apologize on not posting on your comments. As soon as I do some more background research, don't worry I start asking a ton of questions.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Agobot,I am just curious if you are novice like me or a professional physicist. Not to say, that it makes any difference or I would think less of you (because I don't, you obviously have much more knowledge in this area than myself) but just curious if you are actively participating in the research and if so where is it headed. Thanks.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

No, I am not a physicist, I am more of a novice, the last time I dealt seriously with physics was 17 years ago when i was preparing for an entry exam to a tech school. I haven't paid too much attention to physics since then, but I have been thoroughly obssessed with physics for the last 4 months or so. I am reading textbooks and books on QM in all of my free time, day and night. I don't have free time(I even sleep on the lower floor of my house as my wife goes to bed early while i'm still reading), it's funnt but I just cannot stop reading physics stuff. It felt bad in beginning, now it's ok, at times i even feel better - I don't take bad things too seriously.But that's a dangerous slope, you have to decide for yourself if you are ready to accept this, as it will change your life forever. If you are not comfortable, don't even bother. Einstein was a realist and hated what quantum theory implied, and he attacked QM for at least a decade, every time being proven wrong. He would go to his house in solitude(he devised the hidden varibales as an explanation for the EPR paradox that were proven not to exist), then he would prepare for another attack seeking inconsistencies, then another... He failed, you'll more than likely fail too. If you are not prepared to accept what i've told you above, it's better if you go away and forget what we talked about.You could have a look at this way - QM is a mathematical statistical science. It gives incredibly consistent mathematical predictions. They are more than incredible and that's the main reason why physicists believe QM is valid, because it gives accurate descriptions that match experiments. Multiple times, with zero failures and in the case of QED the accuracy is 1 billionth to what mathematics predicted. It's a separate topic but most of our theories are not wrong, as has been discussed in other threads here, it's just that they are approximations of something that physicist believe they can track down with absolute certianty and acccuracy. So for now, QM is the most accurate model physicists have created to date, But...this is only mathematics. At those incredible miniscule scales, it's hard to take pictures of anything(not that there is anything to take picture of, or touch or feel or see). We can only see the remnants of interactions of those said "particles". But as i said QM is a statistical field of physics. Look at it this way -If someone much older than you approached you and said he was your father, although he didn't look in any way like your father. Then he told you each and every little detail you could think of from your entire history together, would you believe he is your father who allegedly underwent a thorough plastic surgery?This is the same with QM, it doesn't make sense, it's extremely radical and mind-blowing but each and every detail fits like a glove. And i'd say it fits the greater picture and introduces sense in the something out of nothing paradox. After all, we need to move on, the Earth is not flat. If you had a time machine and returned to 1413, would anyone believe you that the Earth is round? I've seen people who even today find it unbelievable that it's not flat(the flat earth society). They believe it's supernatural, but what is really supernatural? Isn't a cloud of mathematical waves of possibilities, that talks, eats, walks, thinks, dreams, sings, falls in love, etc.... Supernatural? How in the world is this considered Natural? If you think this is not our world, think about it - would you let some mad Russian scientist remove 0.5% of the atoms of your body(your left kidney) and sell those atoms for 3000 Euro on the black market in Dubai?But out of the physics community and their specific jargon, there is no talk about this. You have to find your way through the veil pulled by physicists over the eyes of the general public, by a mountain of vague and hard to understand terms and concepts.Some physicists disagree, they posit that the wavefunction is a real objectively existing object, but their arguments are weak, they don't correspond to reality(most of them are aware, but they are fighting, or just turn a blind eye). If you are interested in this and your mind is in a perfect mental condition - go ahead, see for yourself both sides of the story. This has been of great interest and pleasure to me, I think this is the greatest debate physicists have ever had between themselves in the entire history of physics. This is pushing human logic to its limits to explain the unexplainable. You'll see unbelievable propositions, outright idiocy(some interpretaions are really flaky) and very often evidence of the extraordinary power of the human mind in some of the brightest scientists on Earth.PS. If the universe is mathematical as Max Tegmark and co. say and it's run on a computer, we should expect to find some cheat codes, right?Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

I still don't understand why you think all this is such a big deal.Change my life forever how? Will I no longer need to eat, sleep or breathe? Will I be able to quit my job and live in peace no matter where I go with total disregard to what anyone else thinks? Why would a mind need to be in perfect mental condition? What practical difference does any of this make? And what is the big deal of redefining "natural" to be exactly this?Or say we discover that everying is controlled by "magic" that follows the rules that an "overseer" types into a computer? This isn't a big deal either. I still need to eat, sleep and breathe. My life really isn't altered in any practial way whatsoever.What "mind-blowing change" are you actually proposing to be possible?I certainly agree it's fascinating, and interesting, and incredible. But I think your faith in the ability of humans to adapt is equally low if you think such knowledge would actually bring any significant portion of the population to tears.If you simply have a problem with being wrong about certain assumptions you've made in your life about the existence of this reality... I don't really see why you think this is such a big issue.

Maybe because we are all different, and we all react different to different stimuli and change. I accept other people's reactions even if they don't conform to my expectations, moral code, and culture because we are all different in our mentality and view toward the world. I was simply hesitant for fear that there is a chance that is different to zero, that someone might get a paranoia over this. Maybe you are right, maybe no one really cares if the world is real or not, but i still feel that this knowledge should be "served" with caution. At least because we are all differently attached to our pre-conceptions and assumptions, some are even dogmatic about their beliefs and I had to consider that maybe some of them won't let go of old concepts that calmly. Or maybe I am wrong, who knows, only a survey could tell. Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

I thought time broke down at the quantum level. That is there is no past, present, or future when we are talking about virtual particles? Is the Higg's particle nothing? I thought this just means that matter is just another interation/form of energy? That is the matter and energy are different forms of the same entity. Either way the law of the conservation of energy has to be observed and technically "everything" cannot come from nothing without disobeying this law. Is it not just that matter is energy "concentrated" to a higher probability of spacetime than other locations (if that makes sense). I agree we are hitting the wall of weirdness and human comprehension. That is why artificial intelligence will nead to increase to overcome the limits of our own brain. For example, could we biological organisms bound to the 4 dimensions of spacetime, create an AI machine that is not limited in this manner? If so, could this AI be able to further explore the higher dimensions of reality and disseminate this information back to us humans (if they don't annihilate us first)? We have to differentiate between mere speculation here and substantiated theories otherwise we run the risk of watering down our knowledge with mere pseudoscientific unsound and unsubstantiated speculations i.e. bending spoons, mad scientists in the future and the like. Again time (as well as space) breaks down at the extreme quantum levels. Which is probably why singularity (i.e. prior to the Big Bang) does not make sense when related to the aspect of time. Life is an emergent entity of self-organization in no uncertain terms. I agree this is the pinnacle of science, to know the "mind of God"? This of course is a metaphor to understand all there is to know about the inner workings of what the universe is and how it works.As Albert Einstein said: BTW, in no way is Einstein advocating a belief in the personal, Christian or even Jewish God of the Bible. He was using this as a metaphor for the unknown (as you Agobot illustriously pointed out). He was at most a deist if not an agnostic. His view of "God" was very much like yours Agobot, that of an unknown impersonal entity/force that works behind the scenes of our known universe. All I have to say is the word "emergence". The question is this: Is unguided emergence a real phenomena or is this an illusion behind which a guided and predetermined destiny for the universe exists? If so than we resort back to the infinite regression of cause and effect. If a God/being/force created the universe and set its laws/nature/behavior, what caused God? This is a plausible theory but yet a fully substantiated and tested one. Again the burden of proof for the existence of some higher entity/force lies on your side of the court. I am not objected to believing it. I just need more evidence that unguided emergence does not occur and that something else is required.As always, I try to abide by these axioms by Albert, in our attempt to understand the fundamental reality of the universe we live in: and Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

I agree with your statements Stile. I was about to comment on Agobot's statement about "changing our lives forever" bit as well.It seems to me Agobot that you place way to much emotion and distress into just another interesting piece of the fundamental nature of the universe bit. After all, even if this were true (which I am very skeptical of in the first place). Excuse my language, but, what the fuck can we do about it except study the phenomena and make grandiose conjurations concerning it.Watching too much Matrix trilogy a bit I thinkest. By the way I am just ribbing. Please don't take me too seriously, and don't discontinue your research and study of science.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

We are talking about 10^-21 to 10^-23 sec. Particles come and go, at those short intervals it is thought that the 1st LOT remains unbroken. The expression "borrow energy from the future" is methaphorical IMO, it's the same as saying it comes from the vacuum or from the nothingness. Define "nothing". Until it's officially found, it is nothing as per dictionaries' definition. They are the same thing. A neutrino doesn't care if we call it matter or energy. Billions pass through your body every second. Then they go ahead and pass... right thru the Earth, then they go on on their long journey and pass right thru the Sun and go on an on. It is observed, but you are thinking classically in the quantum domain. Oh yes? You want to teach Stephen Hawking that the quantum fluctuation universe hypothesis is wrong? Everything cannot come from nothing? You can bet it can. That's how matter is formed according to QCD. Why don't you have a look what NASA have to say before jumping to primitive human common sense and intuitive conclusions(and everything is not the same everything that say a gardener will have in mind):WMAP- Life in the Universe"The motor for making stars (and galaxies) came early and was very subtle. Before the completion of the first fraction of a second of the universe, sub-atomic scale activity, tiny "quantum fluctuations", drove the universe towards stars and life. With the sudden expansion of a pinhead size portion of the universe in a fraction of a second, random quantum fluctuations inflated rapidly from the tiny quantum world to a macroscopic landscape of astronomical proportions. Why do we believe this? Because the microwave afterglow light from the Big Bang has an extraordinarily uniform temperature across the sky. There has not been time for the different parts of the universe to come into an equilibrium with each other *unless* the regions had exponentially inflated from a tiny patch. The only way the isotropy (uniformity) could have arisen is if the different regions were in thermal equilibrium with each other early in the history of the universe, and then rapidly inflated apart. WMAP has verified that other predictions from the inflation theory also appear to be true."Take a look at the graph on the left and the text below it.I don't care what those 5 senses tell you, or what your mum or Jesus Christ told you. It is wrong, reality is an illusion, you come from nothingness and you are nothingness. What we all are is information and speaculatively, probably - consciousness. It makes sense. No no. I didn't say that we are nearing a wall of weirdness and human comprehension. I meant that we are hitting the wall of nothingness, where matter appears to take its mass/energy content - the quantum fluctuations. LOL. I said "Unknown, God, MSFTF, consciousness, ??". Those two question marks mean we don't know and it might be something else. You have to know that in science nothing is 100% certain. Only in religion and in atheism is anything 100% certain(they are the same horseshit BTW, they just use different names). Although this sounds scientific to some, it means "we don't have a goddamn clue" wrapped up in pretentious wording. You could apply this BS to God, unicorns or Santa Claus and declare in a pseudo-scientific manner that unicorns are:an emergent entity of self-organization in no uncertain terms.I have to admit one thing - atheists are way more eloquent than YEC's. We cannot hope to understand what we truly are, what reality is, let alone what a vague concept like god is. For all i know, this Unknown can work and process a large data set of information. Maybe the Unknown is us, maybe we are the creators of everything, who knows... Only atheism and religion claim to have the final answers.BTW, this Jesus vs Darwin thing is really ridiculous. Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

You two are coping really well, that's impressive. I think the answer lies in your question . We can f*ck something, if we can't agree on a commonly accepted purpose of life past replication(all atheists agree replication is the only humanly known purpose of life), what else can we do? I have girlfriends who believe this is the very point of life, who knows maybe they are right. And maybe atheists are right on this and there is no purpose beyong replication(I know Hugh Heffner agrees with me and didn't Sigmund Freud say - a man cannot sleep with all women but it doesn't mean he doesn't have to give it a try).No, seriously i don't know what we should do about it. Maybe we shouldn't do anything, there is no way to see what lies beyond the illusion without dieing. Maybe "everything" stops, i am not willing to try and find out "prematurely".

I don't really see what this has to do with any advances in science, but it is something I'm rather interested in. Although it's not on topic here at all. I know such things have been discussed on this board before, but my limited searching prowess has turned up no focused results.I've requested to start a new thread and you're welcome to join me if you're at all interested in such things.The short answer to your question is that your underlying assumption couldn't be farther from the truth. All atheists most certainly do not agree that "replication is the only humanly known purpose of life."Again, I don't want to draw away from your science discussion so if you'd like to delve deeper into this topic, feel free to join me in the other thread.I'll post a link here if the new thread gets promoted.
As promised:
Message 1Edited by Stile, : Linky Doodle went to town, a-riding on his Spider...

I don't know of a single atheist (I don't like labels anyways) that thinks that replication is the single "purpose" in life for a human beings. Most atheists, agnostics and deists are humanists as well, meaning they place a high value on the dignity of life, both human and non-human. Do all have the same moral systems? Do all agree on how much value, etc. No, but all humanists agree that life and freedom is better for the human race than chaos and destruction.I totally disagree with your baseless accusation that atheists only promote mere replication and nothing else. You propose that we are some "program" in the "big machine" in the sky, want us all to be worried about something we would have no control even if it were true (which I seriously doubt in the first place aka Occam's razor and the lack of substantial evidence supporting this "hypothesis") and have no solution to this "problem" even if it existed in the first place? I don't get it!!Let us keep studying, collecting data, and see where science and logic takes us. That is the only viable solution I can see right now.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Reading comprehension... I did say collective, which means collective for all atheists. Something that you can all agree on?Can you show me a single Thing that you All atheists agree on as a purpose of life? And not some subjectively inferred notion like love, objectivity, justice, peace and other BS... (all these can be subjectively interpreted as being good or bad, depending on the particular situation).It's got to be something that you can objectively and verifiably put to a test and see that what you call Nature designed it in that way, through certain means, as the Meaning of life. I claim the only thing all atheists can agree on and that can be scientifically verified as the meaning of life is replication(sex).So is there such anything beyond replication? Name it please. Or is life meaningless? It's your choice to believe what you want. If you think that matter doesn't come from nothingness, ok. If you believe Bell's theorem non-locality is wrong, ok. If you think string theorists proposing the Holographic Model of the Universe are crazy, ok. If you believe the universe is expanding into something, ok. But that's a religious belief because evidence to the contrary is in your face on all 4 points.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.