The Watchmaker Revisited

[BilliardsBall]

What does it even mean to say something exists 'before time'? Isn't time required to even talk about 'before'?

Certainly. How would you describe time and its progression in the absence of light and space?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Scientists (real scientists, not these theoretical scientists) don’t prove anything. They would either VERIFY or REFUTE if any theory is true or false through empirical and testable evidences.

Only explanations and predictions have been verified and rigorously tested, become accepted SCIENTIFIC THEORY.

Until we have actual evidences that any of the questions, then it becomes a game of “what...if” scenarios.

I don’t see how I could possibly answer your questions, without those evidences been available.

So far, the only successful physical cosmology, today, is the Big Bang theory. And that theory only explain the observable universe that can be detected and measured, eg the earliest radiation, CMBR, from Recombination Epoch (this epoch started 377,000 after the Big Bang).

The othe epochs earlier than Recombination Epoch, haven’t been fully or successfully verified.

So if they cannot see beyond Recombination Epoch, how can it be possible to see beyond the Big Bang, eg before the Planck Epoch?

That being the case, how can any cosmologist knowingly say that the universe is eternal or not eternal?

Hi Gnostic,

I'm not asking you to say whether the universe is eternal or not. I'm asking you if there is a third alternative.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Well...that assumes there WAS a singularity in the first place.

Who's to say the Universe hasn't always existed, and will always exist forever?

Yes, I realize that flies in the face of the Big Bang religion.

I consider myself educated--most cosmologists reject Steady State Theory, and find BB more in line with relativity, entropy, quantum mechanics, etc.

We have two options, however:

The universe isn't eternal: which raises existential questions

The universe is eternal: which raises existential questions

 

[gnostic]

Hi Gnostic,

I'm not asking you to say whether the universe is eternal or not. I'm asking you if there is a third alternative.

Like what?

We could speculate on the 3rd or 4th, but that’s what they would be just more speculative alternatives, with again, more ways that we can’t verify.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Like what?

We could speculate on the 3rd or 4th, but that’s what they would be just more speculative alternatives, with again, more ways that we can’t verify.

Okay, so let's not speculate.

For me, a non-eternal universe begs existential questions.

So does an eternal universe. I think this is the natural human condition.

 

[gnostic]

Okay, so let's not speculate.

For me, a non-eternal universe begs existential questions.

So does an eternal universe. I think this is the natural human condition.

In either cases, there are no WHO involved, whether it be God, Creator, Designer or any other anthropomorphic entity, because that based on solely on ignorance and superstition.

If you are suggesting the WHO being responsible for the universe, then you need evidences other than some Iron Age holy books.

 

[godnotgod]

He is quite clear that particles exist in the sense of quantum mechanics. They don't have the same properties as classical particles, but they * exist.

You are very hung up on the concept of 'material' in a classical sense. And it is true that the *classical* notion is false. But that doesn't mean that things aren't material. It just means that our definitions need to be changed in the light of what we have learned.

Our experiments detect particles, not 'energy fields'.

OK, so what do you mean by 'material'? (2nd request)

 

[Subduction Zone]

Okay, so let's not speculate.

For me, a non-eternal universe begs existential questions.

So does an eternal universe. I think this is the natural human condition.

Why? You should logically be applying the same questions to a creator. You are trying to use an argument from ignorance and that historically has been a very bad reason to invoke a god.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I consider myself educated--most cosmologists reject Steady State Theory, and find BB more in line with relativity, entropy, quantum mechanics, etc.

We have two options, however:

The universe isn't eternal: which raises existential questions

The universe is eternal: which raises existential questions

The Big Bang theory only says that the universe as we know it had a beginning. It does not say anything about "before the Big Bang" That might not even be a possible thing. A lack of evidence when none is expected for a nonexistent god is not evidence for that god. A lack of evidence can be evidence for something only if such evidence is expected. For example the lack of evidence for a worldwide flood when massive evidence is expected for such an event is strong evidence against that flood.

 

[Polymath257]

OK, so what do you mean by 'material'? (2nd request)

I tend not to use the word. If forced, Usually, I identify material and physical. If I want a more refined notion, I would limit matter to things composed of first generation fermions.

 

[godnotgod]

I tend not to use the word. If forced, Usually, I identify material and physical.

You just used the word, or its derivative, to mean that 'matter' is real:

"....that doesn't mean that things aren't material."

If I want a more refined notion, I would limit matter to things composed of first generation fermions.

Fermions are quark and lepton particles. How do you reconcile that with Tong's statement that 'there are no particles in the world'.? According to Tong, all particles are, in reality, 'bundles of energy' in the energy field.[/QUOTE]

 

[gnostic]

Fermions are quark and lepton particles. How do you reconcile that with Tong's statement that 'there are no particles in the world'.? According to Tong, all particles are, in reality, 'bundles of energy' in the energy field.

Wow!

You are still going on and on about Tong’s “bundles of energy”, which I think you are overthinking and misinterpreting this tiny statement.

It is clear from shunyadragon that Tong did other lectures on quantum physics, which shunyadragon stated that Tong talk of particles as “particle”, and not just energy.

You badgered me about watching his one video, where he stated “bundles of energy”, but you refused to watch Tong’s other lectures on particles and the quantum physics. Oh, the irony, and the hypocrisy.

Just as you refused to watch other videos, you are being very selective in twisting Tong’s lecture only on a few words.

You supposed to listen to the whole lecture, godnotgod, not just a few words that you can easily take out of contexts.

Particles can have potential energy - energy to work - that’s the property of most particles, but most particles also have mass too, which also mean mass is a property to (most) particle.

(I have stressed “most” particles, because there are only a two particles that I know of that have no mass - photon and gluon. Even the Higgs boson has mass.)

Mass is what defines the particle. The more concentration of particles, the more mass there are.

Object, like a rubber ball for instance, will have volume because it has mass, and the shape is usually spherical. The shape can change momentarily when it bounces off some surfaces, or you squeeze the ball in your hand, but returns to its normal shape. Since the ball has mass, it has potential energy, the energy that can change (eg changed to kinetic energy), when at work (eg being dropped, being thrown, being bounced). And having mass, it would have minuscule gravitational field, attracted to larger gravitational field, eg Earth, so a ball would bounce on the ground until it is at rest.

I am not a chemist, so I have no idea what is the chemical composition of rubber, but I can generally assume it is made of compounds of different molecules, and when you break down such compounds, you will get certain elements, their discrete atoms. Atoms as you know, each are made of nucleus containing atomic particles as protons and neutrons, which can be further break down into even smaller particles, quarks, all of which nucleus, protons and neutrons) are held together by strong nuclear interactions or forces. The lepton particles, electrons, when bound to the same numbers of protons, make the atom electrically neutral. The bond that holds electrons to the nuclei, is weak nuclear interactions or forces.

The whole point is that entire rubber ball have both mass and energy; they are the properties of the rubber ball.

Meaning, all that atoms and particles that make up the rubber ball, is no illusion, because the ball has mass, volume, density and shape.

Now I know that my example of the rubber ball is mostly classical physics, but even if you were to include quantum physics into my example, particles are still real, and particles have both mass (with the exceptions of photons and gluons, but my example is not about light) and energy.

Beside that, do you think Tong is the only physicist who talk of particle physics and quantum physics? The only person who know what he is talking about.

I think you are over complicating Tong’s choice of words.

As shunyadragon (as well as ecco) have repeatedly pointed out to you already, Tong spoke of particles as particles, not just energy.

But I also remember you made apologetic excuses that Tong only use the word particle, you words were they were only used a convention.

Talk about your hypocrisy and shenanigans.

 

[godnotgod]

Wow!

You are still going on and on about Tong’s “bundles of energy”, which I think you are overthinking and misinterpreting this tiny statement.

It is clear from shunyadragon that Tong did other lectures on quantum physics, which shunyadragon stated that Tong talk of particles as “particle”, and not just energy.

You badgered me about watching his one video, where he stated “bundles of energy”, but you refused to watch Tong’s other lectures on particles and the quantum physics. Oh, the irony, and the hypocrisy.

Just as you refused to watch other videos, you are being very selective in twisting Tong’s lecture only on a few words.

You supposed to listen to the whole lecture, godnotgod, not just a few words that you can easily take out of contexts.

Wow! You are still going on about 'particles', tenaciously clinging to the old materialist paradigm for security!

As I told dragon, Tong did not make statements in the first video to the effect that 'there are no particles', and that 'particles are bundles of energy', and then refute them in other videos. He would have clarified these statements in the first video. There is nothing taken out of context. If you can demonstrate this, then please proceed. I have asked your hero, dragon, to do so, and he has been silent. There is nothing to 'overthink' about Tong's statements. They are what they are, which I have faithfully reproduced. Nothing in context changes their meanings. If meanings have been changed, it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate that.

Particles can have potential energy - energy to work - that’s the property of most particles, but most particles also have mass too, which also mean mass is a property to (most) particle.

(I have stressed “most” particles, because there are only a two particles that I know of that have no mass - photon and gluon. Even the Higgs boson has mass.)

Mass is what defines the particle. The more concentration of particles, the more mass there are.

Object, like a rubber ball for instance, will have volume because it has mass, and the shape is usually spherical. The shape can change momentarily when it bounces off some surfaces, or you squeeze the ball in your hand, but returns to its normal shape. Since the ball has mass, it has potential energy, the energy that can change (eg changed to kinetic energy), when at work (eg being dropped, being thrown, being bounced). And having mass, it would have minuscule gravitational field, attracted to larger gravitational field, eg Earth, so a ball would bounce on the ground until it is at rest.

I am not a chemist, so I have no idea what is the chemical composition of rubber, but I can generally assume it is made of compounds of different molecules, and when you break down such compounds, you will get certain elements, their discrete atoms. Atoms as you know, each are made of nucleus containing atomic particles as protons and neutrons, which can be further break down into even smaller particles, quarks, all of which nucleus, protons and neutrons) are held together by strong nuclear interactions or forces. The lepton particles, electrons, when bound to the same numbers of protons, make the atom electrically neutral. The bond that holds electrons to the nuclei, is weak nuclear interactions or forces.

The whole point is that entire rubber ball have both mass and energy; they are the properties of the rubber ball.

Meaning, all that atoms and particles that make up the rubber ball, is no illusion, because the ball has mass, volume, density and shape.

Now I know that my example of the rubber ball is mostly classical physics, but even if you were to include quantum physics into my example, particles are still real, and particles have both mass (with the exceptions of photons and gluons, but my example is not about light) and energy.

Mass is not matter, which is the subject of my discussion with Polymath. Polymath admits that the classical use of the word 'matter' is now misleading; that what he considers as 'matter' are fermions, which are particles, which Tong says are 'bundles of energy', or rather, 'fluctuations of the field'. We used to think particles were real 'things', but with the discovery of fields, we now know they are fluctuations of the fields. Fluctuations are not things; are not 'matter'. You state that particles are 'real'. Show me what you mean by 'real'.

Beside that, do you think Tong is the only physicist who talk of particle physics and quantum physics? The only person who know what he is talking about.

I am limiting my discussion only to the Tong video, but I had stated that there are two schools of thought: the old materialist paradigm view, like yours, and the view of the new physics, like that of Tong, which equates 'particles' with energy fluctuations.

I think you are over complicating Tong’s choice of words.

No, his words are clear and simple. It is YOU who are adding to his words, by trying to twist them to mean that particles are 'real' matter, but you cannot force 'there are no particles', and 'particles are bundles of energy' to mean what you want them to be. I, OTOH, have not deviated from his words, nor added to them. You want to twist his words to fit your materialist paradigm, which you cannot do.

In Tong's follow-up Q&A video, it begins by him flatly denouncing that the Universe is granular, from a questioner who asks:

Q: (smugly)... "Would you accept that, besides the fact that you describe that everything 's (set up as? inaudible) fields and just interactions, ultimately there is, there always must be some granularity, and so the Greeks were essentially right."

Tong: "No...."

Q: "You wouldn't.....?"

Tong: "Just...'No'....I see no evidence for discreteness. All the discreteness that we see in the world is something which emerges from an underlying continuum."....'Discreteness is not something built into the heart of nature".

IOW, Tong is telling us that what we see as discrete particles are the outcome, not the fundamental condition, of reality. Such 'discrete particles' are, in reality, 'bundles of energy'.

As shunyadragon (as well as ecco) have repeatedly pointed out to you already, Tong spoke of particles as particles, not just energy.

Yes, but only after he qualified what we only have been calling 'particles' to be, in reality, 'bundles of energy'. So he only continues using the term as a matter of convention, with the understanding that they are not the solid material we previously thought them to be.

But I also remember you made apologetic excuses that Tong only use the word particle, you words were they were only used a convention.

Yup! What is it about 'There are no 'particles' in the world' that you fail to grasp, and which you think to mean: 'In spite of what I previously stated, there really ARE particles in the world!' No apologies!

The world of 'material forms' is the outcome of the formless underlying reality that is a continuum. This is in perfect accord with both Buddhism and Hinduism. And there is no real disagreement between the two, as you seem to think.

Hinduism: "Brahman is maya"

Buddhism: " All phenomena are empty of inherent self-nature. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form"

Zen: "From the very beginning, not a single thing exists"

footnote: And regarding consciousness, once you get a glimpse of an underlying continuum, which includes your consciousness, you may have a small epiphany.

 

[shunyadragon]

Certainly. How would you describe time and its progression in the absence of light and space?

In the absence of the time and space of a universe it would not be progressive until the formation of a singularity, and a time and space universe results from the expansion of a singularity.

 

[gnostic]

Mass is not matter, which is the subject of my discussion with Polymath.

You are confusing what I have stated.

I am not saying matter = mass.

I have stated that matter has mass, as mass is one of the properties of matter.

Matter also has energy, as energy is another of properties of matter.

You still cannot seem to grasp that, can you?

Second, I provided you an example of one matter, the rubber ball.

As I stated earlier, I don’t know what the chemical composition of rubbers, but I am assuming as it made by a number of compounds and molecules. Due to the molecular composition of rubber, the physical property of rubber as matter is solid (as in, not liquid, not gas, not plasma).

And if you were to break down these compounds and molecules, you will get atoms. But atoms are comprised of smaller particles.

But as an object, the rubber ball has both mass and energy. While it is just at rest, it has only potential energy, but the energy, when it is in motion.

My point is that the rubber ball isn’t illusion, nor virtual. It is not energy, and it isn’t standing waves.

My problem with you, is your silly mishmash concept of everything in the universe is Pure Consciousness, Brahman, a concept that doesn’t featured in Zen Buddhism, and that everything is just energy - no particles, no matters, as these, according to you, are all illusions, hence Maya.

Third, you only focus on a few words from Tong’s lecture, and twisted them all out of proportion because of this woo woo “pure consciousness” BS.

You have show no evidences that Brahman exist, nor have you shown any evidence that there are “no particles”, just “bundles of energy”.

If you want to present the argument of woo woo (Pure Consciousness or Brahman), then it actually you that need to provide the evidences.

 

[godnotgod]

You have show no evidences that Brahman exist, nor have you shown any evidence that there are “no particles”, just “bundles of energy”.

Second, I provided you an example of one matter, the rubber ball.

I refer you to Tong, who has the evidence, which says that 'Quantum Fields are the real building blocks of the Universe', and not particles, as was previously thought. Fields are not matter. The 'particle' is the outcome of the activity of the field. So the fundamental reality is the Quantum vacuum where vacuum fluctuations appear as 'particles', but are, in reality, 'bundles of energy'. There are no such 'particles' in the world. There are no particles composed of 'real' matter. 'Material' reality is an illusion. If there are 'real' particles, where are they? You give the example of a rubber ball and it's composition, but fail to produce something that is 'real' matter at its fundamental level because there is none.

Tong: "Just...'No'....I see no evidence for discreteness. All the discreteness that we see in the world is something which emerges from an underlying continuum."....'Discreteness is not something built into the heart of nature".

Now **mod edit** or get off the pot.

 

[gnostic]

Fields are not matter.

I didn’t say fields = matters.

Actually matters can generate fields.

Eg magnetic fields radiate outward from the magnet’s poles.

The Earth itself, has two poles, and gravitational fields are what keep everything including the earth’s atmosphere in place.

Electrical plates will generate electric fields between those plates.

Without matters there are no fields.

 

[gnostic]

Earlier, you provided an example that tv signal is independent of TV set, as analogy of tv signal is likened to consciousness.

It is a flawed analogy.

Yes, if one TV set is broken, the tv signal is out there in the airway. But TV set is only a receiver. The tv signals don’t magically appear out of nothing.

The signals come from transmission tower, and the tower is matter. The signals cannot exist without the transmission tower and it cannot exist without tv station that send the video/audio signal from playback device (also matter) to the transmission tower.

 

[godnotgod]

I didn’t say fields = matters.

Actually matters can generate fields.

Eg magnetic fields radiate outward from the magnet’s poles.

The Earth itself, has two poles, and gravitational fields are what keep everything including the earth’s atmosphere in place.

Electrical plates will generate electric fields between those plates.

Without matters there are no fields.

Ooooh, now you're in real trouble.

Look here, gnostic:

All I want is for you to show me exactly where what you think to be 'real' material reality exists at the fundamental level. Show me that what you call 'particles' have real material substance to them. That's all.

 

[godnotgod]

Earlier, you provided an example that tv signal is independent of TV set, as analogy of tv signal is likened to consciousness.

It is a flawed analogy.

Yes, if one TV set is broken, the tv signal is out there in the airway. But TV set is only a receiver. The tv signals don’t magically appear out of nothing.

The signals come from transmission tower, and the tower is matter. The signals cannot exist without the transmission tower and it cannot exist without tv station that send the video/audio signal from playback device (also matter) to the transmission tower.

That is not the point of the analogy. The point is non-locality. IOW, consciousness does not come from the brain in the same manner that TV signals do not come from the TV set . That is where the analogy ends.

 

[gnostic]

That is not the point of the analogy. The point is non-locality. IOW, consciousness does not come from the brain in the same manner that TV signals do not come from the TV set . That is where the analogy ends.

But the signals have to come from somewhere. And the signals come tv station via transmission tower. It is the tower that converts electrical signal into radio or tv signal.

Consciousness doesn’t travel through the airway like tv or radio signals.

Consciousness is part of the brain’s function, it doesn’t exist independent of the brain, and we are only aware of the environment when any one of our sensory perceptions (eg eyes, ears, nose, etc) perceive it.

A person’s consciousness is impaired if he should suffered from head trauma.

Is a person’s consciousness still working, if he become unconscious, or worse brain dead?

Consciousness doesn’t exist eternally.

The whole Pure Consciousness is just woo woo BS, and worse still, is your continuous mixing Hindu lore with Zen Buddhism.

There is nothing in Zen Buddhism that speak of Brahman, or the cosmic or universal consciousness.