The answer to your question: I don't know. I can't know because I don't believe in God. Nobody can know anything about God (especially since he's a fiction).

However, the concept of God is that he created the universe. Implicit in that would be that he controls or created the physical laws.

If you accept that as part of the discussion then it makes no sense to try and use physical laws to argue for or against god. He's not a physical being.

EDIT: In other words, it's safe to assume that he did... and the point is not whether he CREATED them... but that he's above them.

FURTHER EDIT: I didn't ask you a question. Not really anyways. It was meant to be sarcasm.... like "are you kidding!?"

The article makes the following points
(a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric green-house effects,
(b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet,
(c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly,
(d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately,
(e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical,
(f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

(a) seems pretty obvious. It's not a greenhouse, so it shouldn't be called a "greenhouse effect". Heh, well duh. (it uses 34 pages to show this!)

I don't have any credentials to argue against any of the other points, because I'm not a physicist. I'm not sure I can recognize the article in the post that climategate did; seems to be Fox'ed up a bit.

What really blew me away was the ability to slow down the propagation of the glass cracks. Those happen about as close to "instantly" as you can get without breaking a physical law or two.

ps. Hyperbole, but not very much.

I think everyone who visits this site doesn't believe in what most Atheists rally against, which is man made religions.

But that has nothing to do with the fact that the universe holds far more mysteries then we can imagine. See how the scientific preception of the basic physical laws, earth and space has fundamentally changed in one century.

Its preposterous to assume now we know all the answers.

Sorry it took so long to respond, I had a busy weekend.

They are not simple probabilistic events, and they are operating off the same basic principles, that does not mean that systems do not have qualities which their component parts lack.

Does a piston have the capacity to convert petrol into kinetic energy? Does an internal combustion engine have this capacity? Which part of the engine imbues it with this power?

Systems are qualitatively different from their component parts, and some sets of systems, such as systems which decide, are qualitatively different from systems which don't

I'm going to need a definition of "decide" I suppose. It seems like you are dancing around these squishy intuitive concepts instead of having a specific physical distinction to point out. The amoeboid is composed of a lipid bilayer membrane riddled with intricate protein micro-machines that detect changes in the environment, and behaviorally compensate. To discount the intricacy of the mechanisms of genetic expression and chemical signaling that exist even in the simplest of eukaryotic organism is foolish IMHO. Many of the modern models of genetic expression, and compensation for environmental factors look strikingly similar to the connectionist network models of the brain. The computations are similar in the abstract.


You are anthropomorphizing the mold, it does move, this motion increases its chances of finding food, it survives/reproduces. It in no way displays evidence of doing any of this "in order" to accomplish some goal. If you want to suggest that evolution, as a system, displays intelligence, by selecting molds which move in certain ways, I would be willing to acknowledge that intelligence, not a consciousness, but an intelligence.

Well, more likely I'm moldopomorphizing us. What goals do we have that are ultimately distinct from survival, reproduction, and the general continuity of our species? Even something as seemingly unrelated as making music, or art could be cast as some sort of mating ritual. When you somehow separate our behavior from the rest of life on Earth it's as though you want to draw a barrier between us and them. You want to somehow separate us from the natural order. I hate to break it to you, but it just isn't so. We are just demonstrate the spatial heterogeneity of the second law of thermodynamics.


Why is context necessary for experience? What do you experience in infinitesimal time? Why should we posit some sort of experience which is entirely distinct from the type we claim to have?

I experience the moment. In fact, that's all I'm ever experiencing, although my sensation of it may run a little behind. I never experience my memory, I merely compare my experience to memory. Further, what I'm suggesting is not entirely distinct from any experience we claim to have. Some autistic individuals, for instance, report an extremely chaotic existence, in which causal models can't be formed as sensory modalities are not unified in the same way as ours. They are experienced as independent inputs, not reflective of a coherent physical world. Still, they experience it.

Physical laws are not obeyed, they are enforced. electron movements are completely deterministic, like billiard balls, they roll down hill, they don't decide if/when to do so.

Things can not be enforced without an enforcer. Further, as you've conceded the determinism of our brains, again, how are we not passively allowing the laws of nature to push us around? What exactly are we deciding?


I don't believe that you are claiming that electrons have tiny field sensors which feed into a neural network which analyzes them for patterns and then attributes meaning to them by comparing them to earlier similar sensation patterns. Perhaps you can state this more clearly.

No, I believe that by some other physical mechanism, likely involving quarks and particle physics that I admittedly have a poor understanding of, the electron receives information from not immediately proximal locations, and physically displaces itself to a location with more desirable properties given its current energy state. I don't see how that's different than cuddling up to a warm fire.


You seem to be positing that the structure of the universe is not topological, but that it is instead the consequence of 10^80 atoms all working on concert to decide what the laws of the universe are at this moment. If this is your thesis I am inclined to ask on what basis you think it is even vaguely likely that they would came to a consensus, such as they must to allow the functioning of a universe like ours.

Something like that , although I still don't like the word decide. I don't necessarily think they do come to a consensus. It's just that, as with an attractor network, or similar guaranteed convergence dynamical systems, certain macroscopic states are just more likely than others, despite chaos at the subordinate level. The reason I'd rather drop the word decide is because I don't necessarily want to open the door to something like free will. To cast it in a "God" metaphor, I imagine more of an omniscient God, than an omnipotent God.


Please provide some basis to believe that there is a phenomenal experience.

I can't other than to refer you to what I presume you to have. I could suggest focussing on your breathing, or what have you. I can point you towards literature showing that people that claim to focus on their consciousness can perform physical feats not previous considered possible (for instance monks rewriting the books on the physical tolerance of the human body to cold). Otherwise, I can't. I will say this, however, I take it to be the atomic element of inductive reason. The natural "laws" you are taking as primary are secondary. There is a simple reason for this as Alfred North Whitehead pointed out. If suddenly we were to observe all bits of matter floating away from one another, and were to confirm we were not hallucinating, and perhaps have the experience corroborated by our colleagues, it would not be the experience which was wrong, it would be the laws of nature. Experience has primacy. Matter is merely the logical consequence of applying induction to our particular set of shared experiences.


And that will persist as long as we are not talking about anything. You say "X exists". I say "What is X?". You say "You can't disprove X". And here we are talking about nothing.

I told you, in the best english I can, what X is. It's the qualia of phenomenal experience. Now I can't provide you with direct evidence for it, but I can tell you that nearly everyone I talk to has some sense of what I mean.


You must be using an alternate form of the word "believe". How can someone believe something, and simultaneously be completely unwilling to assert that it is a fact?

I take the Bayesian sense of the word. All probabilities are subjective degrees of belief. I adopt this degree of belief based on anecdotal experience and generalizations therein. None of this would be accepted as evidence by any reviewer, nor should it, and thus I wouldn't want to risk my credibility by asserting it as fact. I can believe some hypotheses to be more likely than others on the basis of no evidence, and in fact do all the time. That's how I, and all other scientists, decide what experiment to run next. I should not, however, expect you to believe me a priori, as you may operate on different axioms, and draw from different anecdotal experience. Thus, I would not feel compelled to assert my beliefs as fact, other than in so far as they are, in fact, my beliefs.

>> ^dgandhi:

Electrons are "comparing" electric fields when they settle into a state, otherwise they couldn't obey their physical laws.
Physical laws are not obeyed, they are enforced. electron movements are completely deterministic, like billiard balls, they roll down hill, they don't decide if/when to do so.


Wow.. just wow. Let's just say you shouldn't have started with the electron as an example of deterministic or comparison to Newtonian physics....

Since you are so sure of your deterministic world.. then promise me you'll never ever use a quantum computer in your lifetime. Because it might involve elections sensing and comparing themselves to others.. And it also might involve random non-deterministic events.

>> ^bmacs27: How are our actions not "probabilistic events?" The amoeba is operating off the same basic principals.

They are not simple probabilistic events, and they are operating off the same basic principles, that does not mean that systems do not have qualities which their component parts lack.

Does a piston have the capacity to convert petrol into kinetic energy? Does an internal combustion engine have this capacity? Which part of the engine imbues it with this power?

Systems are qualitatively different from their component parts, and some sets of systems, such as systems which decide, are qualitatively different from systems which don't

It's moving matter in order to seek out food, and even flexing its pseudopods along the shortest path between food sources in proportion to their delivery frequency.

You are anthropomorphizing the mold, it does move, this motion increases its chances of finding food, it survives/reproduces. It in no way displays evidence of doing any of this "in order" to accomplish some goal. If you want to suggest that evolution, as a system, displays intelligence, by selecting molds which move in certain ways, I would be willing to acknowledge that intelligence, not a consciousness, but an intelligence.

Why is memory necessary for experience?

Why is context necessary for experience? What do you experience in infinitesimal time? Why should we posit some sort of experience which is entirely distinct from the type we claim to have?

Electrons are "comparing" electric fields when they settle into a state, otherwise they couldn't obey their physical laws.

Physical laws are not obeyed, they are enforced. electron movements are completely deterministic, like billiard balls, they roll down hill, they don't decide if/when to do so.

As far as I'm concerned an electron is sensing an electrical field in the same way I am sensing visual band EM.

I don't believe that you are claiming that electrons have tiny field sensors which feed into a neural network which analyzes them for patterns and then attributes meaning to them by comparing them to earlier similar sensation patterns. Perhaps you can state this more clearly.

I just believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of matter.

You seem to be positing that the structure of the universe is not topological, but that it is instead the consequence of 10^80 atoms all working on concert to decide what the laws of the universe are at this moment. If this is your thesis I am inclined to ask on what basis you think it is even vaguely likely that they would came to a consensus, such as they must to allow the functioning of a universe like ours.

It's the sheer fact that there is a phenomenal experience, not the particular nature of those phenomena.

Please provide some basis to believe that there is a phenomenal experience.

You've presented me no evidence that I should only expect phenomenal experience in a complex organism, as you have no test for phenomenal experience.

And that will persist as long as we are not talking about anything. You say "X exists". I say "What is X?". You say "You can't disprove X". And here we are talking about nothing.

"I believe that P(X) > P(!X)". Something you shouldn't really care to contest,

You must be using an alternate form of the word "believe". How can someone believe something, and simultaneously be completely unwilling to assert that it is a fact?

Ok... I still see this line as completely arbitrary. How are our actions not "probabilistic events?" The amoeba is operating off the same basic principals. It's exerting energy to maintain certain ion concentrations. It's moving matter in order to seek out food, and even flexing its pseudopods along the shortest path between food sources in proportion to their delivery frequency. There is even a paper showing that it will respond to periodic stimuli (such as cold shocks at particular intervals) with predictive changes of behavior. How is that any different?

Further, comparison and recall? Why is memory necessary for experience? For the successful completion of certain cognitive tasks, sure, but I keep needing to remind you that isn't what we're talking about here. As for comparison, it's happening everywhere all the time. Electrons are "comparing" electric fields when they settle into a state, otherwise they couldn't obey their physical laws. I think the problem here is that your thinking is boxed into the human sensory modalities. As far as I'm concerned an electron is sensing an electrical field in the same way I am sensing visual band EM. It just can't image it as well, and thus can't respond to complex patterns at much distance. Again, not to diminish that extraordinary decrease in entropy, but I don't know why it should be so fundamental.

Also, to be clear, I've never claimed that what I'm looking for is something immaterial. I just believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of matter. Being matter, and conscious, I have no reason to think otherwise. Again, this consciousness is distinct from "thinking". It's the sheer fact that there is a phenomenal experience, not the particular nature of those phenomena. You've presented me no evidence that I should only expect phenomenal experience in a complex organism, as you have no test for phenomenal experience. This is why Chalmers, and others, have argued that consciousness is not necessarily best studied by traditional english empiricism. It's wholly inadequate to investigate the phenomenon. A better solution might draw on Eastern traditions of meditation, for instance. Many monks, including the Dali Llama have been interested in cooperating.

But you have made a claim, that for some particular X, P(X) > P(!X). On the basis of that statement, and the assumption that you are rational, I draw the conclusion that you have some concept of what X is, or at least what its consequences are, otherwise you are making a non-sequitur claim.

I do have some very general concept of what x is, but not such a certain idea that I would ever make a claim like P(X) > P(!X). That is, unless you toe a hard Bayesian line, and accept that my claim is completely a subjective degree of belief. Otherwise, my claim was something like "I believe that P(X) > P(!X)". Something you shouldn't really care to contest, but I'll defend my priors against your priors till you're blue in the face. I won't be bullied by the tyranny of some arbitrary model selection criteria.

I believe it was Feynman who said "If you can't explain it to a child and have them explian it back to you again, then you didn't know what you were talking about in the first place" - or smething like that, I don't have the exact quote right now...

My Favorites:
1). The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
2). The Character of Physical Law
3). Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun

The first two are fairly easy reads, I highly recommend them!
The third one had some math. It comes with a n audio CD of the actual lecture and the book includes a walk through and explanation of the entire lecture. Even if you don't understand the math involved, it's a great lecture. I listened to it with a pencil and a stack of blank paper so I could draw along with it. I was able to follow along, albeit slowly but then advanced math is not a strong part of mine.

Apocalyptic Superstring Theory? I like it.

In reply to this comment by honkeytonk73:
Fake.

The universe is only 6000 years old. All the light from so-called galaxies and the rest of the universe was created solely for our amusement and is nothing more than a distraction. It isn't real. It is simply there to keep us busy until the day of rapture, where those who are 'chosen' will the magically transported into an alternate universe where they can live in happy la-la land on solidified cloudtops for the rest of eternity, grow a set of wings, and fly like birds oblivious of all physical laws, aerodynamics, gravity, and be without anuses... as we'll never need to eat or poop material from the physical plane of existence again...

Meanwhile the rest of you non-believers get to be sucked up and eaten by a real black hole along with the rest of the solar system. All black holes ultimately lead to one big highly compressed lake of fire. As fire cannot exist in aqeuous form, it is more like supercompressed plasma... rather than fire and brimstone as most might assume.

Fake.

The universe is only 6000 years old. All the light from so-called galaxies and the rest of the universe was created solely for our amusement and is nothing more than a distraction. It isn't real. It is simply there to keep us busy until the day of rapture, where those who are 'chosen' will the magically transported into an alternate universe where they can live in happy la-la land on solidified cloudtops for the rest of eternity, grow a set of wings, and fly like birds oblivious of all physical laws, aerodynamics, gravity, and be without anuses... as we'll never need to eat or poop material from the physical plane of existence again...

Meanwhile the rest of you non-believers get to be sucked up and eaten by a real black hole along with the rest of the solar system. All black holes ultimately lead to one big highly compressed lake of fire. As fire cannot exist in aqeuous form, it is more like supercompressed plasma... rather than fire and brimstone as most might assume.

>> ^Psychologic:
Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.

It is faith if there is no evidence for it. Believing in gods requires faith because there is no evidence that they exist.
However, our observations that physical laws have been consistent in the past give evidence in support of the prediction that physical laws will continue to be consistent. That is not faith, because it is based on evidence. No one can know that they will remain consistent, but they can predict it based on the data we have collected thus far.



predictions are not something independent of human mental states. one has to believe a prediction. if you say you predict this and this will happen it de facto means you believe it will happen.

you seem to be consistently avoiding the crucial link in the chain - the thinking human being.

Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.


It is faith if there is no evidence for it. Believing in gods requires faith because there is no evidence that they exist.

However, our observations that physical laws have been consistent in the past give evidence in support of the prediction that physical laws will continue to be consistent. That is not faith, because it is based on evidence. No one can know that they will remain consistent, but they can predict it based on the data we have collected thus far.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^HadouKen24:
Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith.
While Hume's argument was philosophically true when it was made, it is a groundless assertion that physical law will cease to be consistent. The scientific history of consistency which we have observed since the time of his life is evidence of consistency.
We now have mountains of evidence that physical laws have continued to be consistent, while the probability that they will remain so is not 100%, it does not follow that the position is groundless, and therefor requiring faith.
Given the available evidence we can safely claim that it is astronomically unlikely that physical laws will arbitrarily cease to be consistent. They could, just as my life might be a complicated computer simulation, or I'm living on an alien wild life preserve, or the earth will stop spinning at noon today, but these are not likely, only possible, belief in any of these would require faith, assuming their falsehood does not.





Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.

>> ^HadouKen24:
Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith.

While Hume's argument was philosophically true when it was made, it is a groundless assertion that physical law will cease to be consistent. The scientific history of consistency which we have observed since the time of his life is evidence of consistency.

We now have mountains of evidence that physical laws have continued to be consistent, while the probability that they will remain so is not 100%, it does not follow that the position is groundless, and therefor requiring faith.

Given the available evidence we can safely claim that it is astronomically unlikely that physical laws will arbitrarily cease to be consistent. They could, just as my life might be a complicated computer simulation, or I'm living on an alien wild life preserve, or the earth will stop spinning at noon today, but these are not likely, only possible, belief in any of these would require faith, assuming their falsehood does not.