Simplest self-replicating organism (mycoplasma genitalium) has 580073 base pairs (ATCG, 4 values, can be stored in 2-bits). Obviously it has finite complexity associated with it, and in terms of information it can be stored in about 142 kBytes, something downloaded by modern cheap consumer internet connections in a fraction of a second. Human DNA consists of about 3 billion base pairs, and there are certain plants that have as much as 50 times longer DNA than humans. Obviously simply in terms of the organisms ability to replicate itself their genomes are highly redundant, change a few nucleotides here and there and it'll still live.
Now of course the naive argument goes that since all the possible combinations of a 500 kbp (kilo-base-pair) genome is rather large, ~10^300000 being the number of different possible "programs" (but still finite might I point), then there must have been a designer. This of course is fallacious in many ways, but for the sake of argument, lets say the probabilities were correct. What does this have to do with a designer? Does it get us anywhere? After all, who designed the designer? The most important question would be still unanswered and it would be simpler to just answer the question in the first place, how did this unlikely organism come about.
Another perhaps interesting thought related to this number is that perhaps we shouldn't look at it in such a way at all. Even if the worst case estimate was correct, perhaps it would simply tell us something about the size of the multiverse, the number of different multiverses that must exist. After all, we must find ourselves in such a universe where life came about in order for us to be able to think about questions such as this.
In practice these numbers would be brought down to lower value due to many reasons such as certain configurations being much less likely than other, also the universe possibly having many suitable planets for life, and possible many different types of life that could exist, some perhaps even pure energy rather than organic matter.
Something else which is somewhat related...
Given a low level programming language such as C, a simple self-replicating computer program can be as short as the following:
It seems that someone found an interesting example of self-replicating machine in a simple rule based "universe" - the game of life. Coincidentally this machine consists of a number of game-cells which is on the same order as the number of base pairs in the simplest organic self-replicating organism.
Seems to me that the effective search-space is unlikely to be very large if a human being can so easily find such a program. That is of course background dependent. Never the less, wouldn't it be impressive if we could simply simulate the emergence and evolution of intelligent life in a simple computer program. Evolution we perhaps already can to some extent and I doubt emergence is very far either. What will their excuse be then?
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Most of mankind take themselves and life way too seriously in my opinion and I don't really like such people too much. Also, by the words of the late great comedian George Carlin, people are stupid, full of shit, and fucking nuts.
I have no absolute faith in anything, not even that the sun will rise tomorrow, it's just that it is very unlikely that I'm wrong about it based on my knowledge about physics and history. You make the best choice you can based on your limited facts. That is the best thing one can ever hope to do.
God is not a good model for any phenomena. It has no predictive power which would exceed simpler theories.
Mankind should plan ahead a bit more. Perhaps progress will be stopped due to shortsighted use of non-renewables. We might learn one day that we have wasted all resources on mostly unimportant and unproductive things like ipads etc. when we should have saved them for scientific research. Maybe the society should have regulated the use of non-renewables so that they last at least 100 generations of humans during which time they would have discovered the science needed to free themselves from scarcity, but now... perhaps one day we find our society collapsing when we simply run out of everything. Not to mention that we should have probably regulated procreation as well.
We are born, we live and we die. What is there to tell?
"There is no such thing as over analyzing. They are just doing it wrong."
Did you know that a spoonful of black hole would weigh more than planet earth? But depending on which black hole it was taken from it might also weigh less than equivalent amount of water.
"Confidence comes not from always being right but not fearing to be wrong."
One can to some extent perhaps conceive a spacetime where the Planck's constant is zero, but can one conceive no spacetime at all? I would claim the answer is no. You can never conceive absolute nothingness, it is incoherent concept to the human mind. We always tend to think space and time will go on forever, yet that conception is clearly incoherent and even contradicted by observations.
When asked if he knew the speed of sound, Einstein said he "didn't carry such information in my mind since it's readily available in books."
Human, I believe, in principle, is born perfect. Adding something to it, or removing something from it, only makes them less perfect. If we want to extend ourselves, we should do it in a way which retains the original.
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"I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of their own."
"People may forget what you said but they'll never forget how you made them feel."
"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." - Plato
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." - Charlie Chaplin
"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men."
"They just recite it everyday in an attempt to have any connection to the world since the real world is too painful and spotted where most people's wishes are resigned. Would we be happier to live life not remembering how many of the things we gave up hope on that we may have truly loved or going on to the very end of life continually recollecting all the things we didn't have the will or determination to see all the way through because of our own personal flaws and fears about what we have the potential to accomplish?"
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo da Vinci
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Everything is possible. That's why all talk is really only about probabilities. If one is unlucky enough, the world might just end unpredictably at any nanosecond without any particular reason. Collapse of false vacuum by tunneling perhaps. Scientists expect it to happen, perhaps 10 billion years from now, but nothing guarantees that it doesn't occur tomorrow.
We all have goals, some people just settle for less and some people never reach their goals. What is worth it and what is noble is a matter of opinion. Personally I'm not afraid of what people think of me, that is irrelevant. What I might be afraid of though, is that I might never get what I want. And yet to pretend that I don't want it, would be self-deception.
Due to practical reasons language is formed by those who use it and not by defining and planning bodies. To acknowledge this reality is important. Natural language is hopelessly imprecise anyway and it would be foolish to assume everyone understands or uses its words identically or coherently. The only way to use natural language with any precision is to engage in active feedback process and continuously define the words that are used in order to converge the information exchange process of the two parties. It is not a fallacy to appear to having been reasoned wrong, but a fallacy will be revealed if after several rounds of feedback the reasoning cannot be justified.
God is free to voice his opinion anytime he wishes and I would love to hear from god, but I'm not going to hold my breath and the reason is the same why I don't play the lottery.
I would be interested to know how a god would intend to demonstrate to me that it is a god.
"Next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist." - Stephen Hawking
"People who boast about their IQ are losers." - Stephen Hawking
"It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child." - Isaac Asimov
"It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on." - Virginia Woolf
"The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man." - Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
"Art is not life, and life is not art; but the beauty and horror of the human condition exists between the two." - H. G. Mewis
"We are meaning-seeking creatures. Dogs, as far as we know, do not agonise about the canine condition, worry about the plight of dogs in other parts of the world, or try to see their lives from a different perspective. But human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value." - Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth
Can a very pure mind really have a proper connection to the world when the real world is so painful and spotted?
How many people unknowingly give up on their dreams? Would we be happier to live a life of not remembering how many of the things we gave up on or going on to the very end of life recollecting all the things we didn't have the will or determination to see through because of our own personal flaws or fears about what we had the potential to accomplish?
Eating one banana gives you a higher dose of radiation than living within 50 miles from a nuclear power plant for a year.
I've listened to some of the debates by Willian Lane Craig (WLC) and have been really unimpressed by him, supposedly a foremost christian apologist. He makes logical fallacies, and is in my opinion insincere. Is this the best they can do? I've had this plan to critique all his arguments for a while now and collect the logical fallacies he makes to single easily accessible and identifiable list. I've meant to get started on this for a while now, but never quite had the time, but I guess I'll just have to get started somewhere. Today I'll begin by writing something. Perhaps I will gradually collect some of the better arguments from youtube as well.
(this video not related)
Do note that I'm only interested in the nature of reality and what we know about it, not semantics or personal opinions.
A brief word about my personal beliefs (for the sport of it): I am a person who lacks a belief in all supernatural. I believe the Universe and all of mankind is a simple deterministic digital machine. I believe everything that exists, does so because of necessity and the Universe is a self-contained, self-sufficient mindless entity whose main building blocks are pieces of information and natural logical evolution of states of information. Mind as far as I can tell is nothing more than a sophisticated computer, a product of the laws of physics and evolution by natural selection.
But, let's begin with this debate now...
WLC: There are good reasons to think supernaturalism is true.
WLC: The origin of the universe points to the existence of a transcendent creator.
**let's see if we hear any good reason as to why this would be the case.
WLC: Out of nothing, nothing comes.
**This principle is irrelevant because we know nothing about anything (relevant to the context, such as energy) coming into existence, the initial state of universe is known to exist, but a state of non-existence is not, we don't even know if it is coherent to speak of such because the initial state is the beginning of time and space. Therefore we cannot say whether it is possible for something to come from nothing or even if the whole sentence makes any sense. The evolution of the universe is causal flow of energy, like a computer doing calculations which started around 14 billion years ago, but no relevant examples to justify the used principle exist for this context. The argument is totally incoherent and useless in this context.
**Note: WLC tries to place the cause of the universe outside of the space and time, however quantum fluctuations by definition have their origins outside of space and time as well because we cannot causally identify their source within this universe at this time.
WLC: Timeless, spaceless... There are only two kinds of things that fit that description, abstracts or intelligent mind. Abstract objects cannot cause anything?
**There are only two kinds of things that WE KNOW OF. Furthermore, what if abstract objects can cause something? Do we really know that they aren't some deeper underlying structure of the universe which might necessitate something to come into being or existence of some structure like the universe itself. Geometry is a relevant part of mathematics, the numerical value of pi in Euclidean geometry surely must be exactly what it is by necessity. Perhaps equally well the universe simply must exist and there is no other alternative. In fact from a certain perspective we know this to be the case because it exists, the beginning is the past. What happened, happened. Of course one might dive into the depths of solipsism, but perhaps there will be another time for that. After all I don't believe many people think solipsism is particularly relevant in this context at this time. Never the less, we don't know anything at all about timeless and spaceless things, the information content of our minds themselves as far as we know is bound to the existence of our space-time.
WLC: It therefore follows that the cause of the universe is a transcendent personal mind.
**We don't know that a mind can exist without time, space and energy. There are no examples to justify this conclusion. Furthermore, the initial state of the universe, the quantum vacuum, which is know to exist, seemingly shares the characteristic of having its source outside of time and space is know to be "white", meaning its nature is purely statistical, it shows no characteristics of a mind, and yet seems to have the same potential for creating the universe as a god would, but without any need for a mind. It is in many ways more plausible explanation.
WLC: Fine-tuning of the universe points to a designer.
**
1) Fine tuned for life as we know it, so what? We don't know all the possible types of life that can exist. There could still be other kinds of life even if the constants were different and we would still be asking the same questions even if we were that other kind of life.
2) It would have to be demonstrated that the constants could be different from what they are. A problem arises from the premise that the cosmological constants are in fact 'fine tuned' at all. This premise assumes that there is a certain range of values that each constant could assume. Perhaps the values they have now are the only values they can assume.
3) If there were a God, rather than needing 70 sextillion stars and 13.75 billion years, there would only be need of one planet. Therefore fine-tuning is in fact argument against the existence of god.
4) Perhaps the values are in fact very finely "tuned" for life, and there are other universes which have different values, but since we are asking the question, we must exist in an universe where the values made it possible.
...in fact I think I might just recap at some point why Kalam Cosmological argument, Fine-Tuning and Argument from morality are stupid arguments. Or perhaps try to address how in general none of these arguments have any merit. Though it might be more interesting to point out in which ways WLC is disingenuous. Although I have genuine trouble understanding why anyone with even a half of brain would have any difficulties seeing it.
Another interesting point to note is that practically no one believes in god due to these arguments. People have their faith due to other reasons. Another thing, people say there are answers in the bible (or whatever holy text they might be reading). I would like to know what exactly there is such that actually explains something that isn't explained elsewhere and independently, often much better and plausibly. I for example don't remember learning anything from the bible or religion which would explain or reveal anything useful I dind't either have reasoned myself or learned from elsewhere.
Then there is the talk about solipsism, but I don't quite see the point. I think therefore I am. It is irrelevant what I am, where I am, when I am. My experience exists and what I call the world, the people, the matter, they are bits of information which exists at a distance from me, my ability to influence requires certain effort, I am at a distance from them. Their definition and experience is relevant as defined as external world regardless if it is "actually" internal or external in any idealistic sense. Also this material and immaterial talk seem irrelevant to me. What we call matter, energy, and what would be called immaterial is only information. Minds included. Relations between relevant objects of existence. All this seemingly complicated philosophy people seem so baffled about seems so trivial to me. It is only a language game. What I know is what I know. Perhaps in the future I know more, but that is irrelevant until I know it. I don't make mistakes because given the information I knew at the time I would make the same mistake all over again. That is not a mistake, it is the only possible action given a certain state of affairs. There is no second guessing anything, things are the way things are. Always make the best possible decision based on the facts you know and there is never anything to regret.
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." - Marcus Aurelius
I never cease to be amazed by peoples need to accept any stupid answer to their poorly understood questions in the face of unknown.
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Causality shows that every cause is also an effect of something else. Except your 'magic' first cause. Causality can only exist within a temporal dimension. Outside the temporal boundary, causality cannot exist. This is very simple. What 'caused' the temporal boundary to begin? You claim magic man. Scientists point to spontaneous events from outside our universe that are occurring all the time. God is a far more complicated explanation and raises only more questions while not really contributing to our understanding.
Besides, what would be the point of debating someone like WLC who doesn't understand the rules of the game or simply doesn't respect them.
Earlier in my update "Nothing defies reason" in September 2012, I expressed my interest in the digital deterministic idea of the Universe as a machine. This was based on the Beckenstein bound and Brehmermann's limit.
This view is however rather sharply contrasted by the loss of unitarity in quantum measurements, such as those I discussed in my Nov 2012 and Feb 2013 updates. So which is it? Is the world deterministic or not? Perhaps nobody knows, but I'll mix the deck a little bit.
Evolution of a wavefunction in a completely quantum mechanical system is unitary, this means that such a system is in priciple perfectly deterministic. Modern physics knows two major nonunitary cases. The measurement problem - the wave function collapse (exemplified by apparently indeterministic radioactive decay for example), and the black hole information paradox. Now it seems that at least Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind believes that black hole information paradox is or will be resolved in favor of information not being lost (this implying determinism).
If indeed there is no such thing as black hole information paradox then perhaps is it also true that wavefunction collapse will not lose information either and is fundamentally deterministic. How could it be? Didn't Bell's theorem kill all hope of determinism? Perhaps not, it only killed all hope of local hidden variables theories, but perhaps the hidden variables aren't local... and perhaps the ways in which the perfect description can be found has to do with the Holographic principle and black holes. Wouldn't that be something beautiful?
One sometimes runs into discussion with philosophers and religious people about the nature of vacuum and the origin of the universe. These people tend to instinctively always discuss about a vacuum we know nothing about and have never seen or observed - I'll call it the Aristotelian vacuum. It is a state of absolute absense of everything. Though often ill defined in a sense that it is undefined if it is also in a state of absense from time and space. The actual vacuum we know of is the quantum vacuum, a region of spacetime which exists in a minimum energy state and from which no energy can be extracted, but in which the laws of physics apply, mainly the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics etc. That sort of vacuum has been observed and it is the only kind of vacuum we know of. This is a very important distinction.
The way science works is that we open our eyes and observe what we see around us. Then we give names to our observation and plan our lives according to what we've observed. I think therefore I am. Anything else is at a distance from me. The thing is, quantum vacuum basically explains and predicts the universe and our observations so far. Aristotelian vacuum exists nowhere that we know of and explains nothing. It is also unclear if such a vacuum makes any sense, regardless if it includes time and space. Some questions are also very ill defined, what was before the big bang? Big bang is the edge of time and space, or one might say time began so the question doesn't make any sense. Did the Universe always exist? Yes, in fact it did, because always is context dependent on time and if time is part of the universe then as much as there is always to be had, it did exist. Additionally, we simply cannot see and therefore speak of anything outside the universe.
Now then there's the story of the two universes? What's that all about? The lowercase universe is the observable universe, all the galaxies and all the matter, energy, space and time, the laws of physics etc. that we know of. A diameter of approximate 93 billion light years and roughly 14 billion years of time. Over 100 billion galaxies each containing around 100 billion stars. The capital Universe on the other hand is commonly defined as the totality of all existence. All the parallel universes, multiverses, omniverses, branes, cycles and whatsamacallits. All the dimensions and all the information we may ever dream of. If there exists such a thing as god (which I don't believe), it is by definition part of the Universe and at most the Universe.
There may become a day when the universe is equivalent to the Universe, but as of today we aren't there yet. It may be that the Aristotelian vacuum is part of the Universe even when it is not part of the universe or it may be that the concept of Aristotelian vacuum doesn't even make sense. Equivalently, god is a concept which might in principle perhaps be part of the Universe in some form, or at most be the Universe, but it is most certainly not part of the universe (now), simply because of the way the universe is defined. Though I do believe that god most strictly speaking is a contradictory idea, and even when defined more loosely is unlikely to exist in the Universe or be a coherent (to the idea) concept. The nature of quantum vacuum on the other hand is such that it is part of the universe since it has been observed, it also seems to explain the universe, however very fundamental property of quantum vacuum, the quantum fluctuation is not identifiable, so we must conclude that it must by definition reside outside the universe (but within the Universe). What makes quantum vacuum a very unique thing is that it is the only so fundamental thing we know of which requires an explanation in this universe and obviously has its explanation outside of the universe. Why do I say such a thing? Because quantum fluctuations are not causal, they are the only thing which don't have causally identifiable origin, and have basically been conclusively demonstrated not to have one but are yet observable.
God exists outside of time and space? He is changeless? Isn't the first almost the definition of nonexistence, even at best it would only mean he exists in some other time and space. The second certainly the definition of mindlessness.
However, to conclude, there are things we've seen and continue to see, but can't explain. That is science waiting to be done. Then there are things only some people have seen, but can't point out to others and may or may not continue to see, that something is most often religion.
1. Argument from ignorance (a faulty implication that the opponent's inability to disprove a conclusion would be proof of its validity)
2. Straw man (misrepresentation of an opponent's position)
To "attack a straw man" is to misrepresent the opponents position and refute it and to suggest incorrectly that this would refute the original position.
3. Non sequitur (a faulty suggestion that the conclusion would follow from the premises)
4. Equivocation (misleading use of a term with more than one meaning)
5. False dilemma (a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option)
6. Red herring (speakers attempt to distract the audience by an irrelevant argument)
Such as one of the following:
Ad hominem (a faulty suggestion that an argument against the opponents person would be relevant in disproving their argument)
Argumentum ad populum (appeal to widespread belief)
Appeal to authority
Appeal to consequences
Appeal to emotion
7. Slippery slope (a faulty assertion that a small first step inevitable leads to a chain of events culminating in some significant effect that should not happen)
8. Cherry picking (act of pointing at individual cases that seem to confirm a position, while ignoring significant data to the contrary)
9. Irrelevant conclusion (presenting an argument that may or may not be logically valid, but fails nonetheless to address the issue in question)
10. Special pleading (attempt to cite something as an exemption to a rule without justification)
Beware of your thoughts, they become your words.
Beware of your words, they become your actions.
Beware of your actions, they become your habits.
Beware of your habits, they become your character.
Beware of your character, it becomes your destiny.
- Unknown
The following article recently created some confusion in certain forums. One should always avoid talking about over 100% efficiencies in a popular science article. Their LED produces 69 pW worth of photons while consuming only 30 pW of power, it also cools itself down in the process. Even those who are somewhat familiar with thermodynamics didn't seem to clearly point out what is the source of this extra energy which allows the led to cool at the same time and produce more photons than would be otherwise possible.
The simple answer is of course that this device is a kind of heat pump. The "heat" flux between which the device pumps energy and extracts the excess is that between the temperature of the device and its surroundings and the space into which it radiates its photons. The space is cold and the device is warm. They even heat it up artificially. It is offering a path between the cold space and a warm device in the form of a photon, a path which doesn't normally exist. This effect would be impossible should there be an energy balance between the space and the device, such as leaving photons would be equal to incoming photons. Obviously this is not the case.
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"If one neglects to take into account the gravitational attraction of a single electron on the other side of the observable universe, then after just 50 collisions on average per molecule, the calculated positions of particles would be completely different than if one did correctly account for that electron."
