Posted on 03/14/2008 5:08:51 AM PDT by iowamark
The $1.6 million Templeton Prize, the richest award made to an individual by a philanthropic organization, was given Wednesday to Michael Heller, 72, a Roman Catholic priest, cosmologist and philosopher who has spent his life asking, and perhaps more impressively answering, questions like “Does the universe need to have a cause?”...
Much of Professor Heller’s career has been dedicated to reconciling the known scientific world with the unknowable dimensions of God.
In doing so, he has argued against a “God of the gaps” strategy for relating science and religion, a view that uses God to explain what science cannot.
Professor Heller said he believed, for example, that the religious objection to teaching evolution “is one of the greatest misunderstandings” because it “introduces a contradiction or opposition between God and chance.”
In a telephone interview, Professor Heller explained his affinity for the two fields: “I always wanted to do the most important things, and what can be more important than science and religion? Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence.”
Professor Heller said he planned to use his prize to create a center for the study of science and theology at the Pontifical Academy of Theology, in Krakow, Poland, where he is a faculty member....
On returning years later to Poland, where Communist authorities sought to oppress intellectuals and priests, Professor Heller found shelter for his work in the Catholic Church. He was ordained at 23, but spent just one year ministering to a parish before he felt compelled to return to academia....
The prize will be officially awarded in London by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in a private ceremony on May 7 at Buckingham Palace.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is way-hey-hey beyond me, but thanks for keeping me in the loop. It’s good for me. If cerebral stretch-marks are good...
LOL Mrs. Don-o! Oh, this stuff will definitely make your head hurt! :^) It's good to know you're following along anyway.
So, do you have an alternative? Which observations can be generalized? Which not? The experiment itself is an artificial construct, and what is viewed is abstracted from the context in which it naturally occurs.
Wow, that's a quite artificial differentiation.
In a laboratory, our sample may well be "a uniform distribution." But this does not allow us to say that all of nature is a uniform distribution (all possibilities equally probable, so that everything happens sooner or later, or has already happened in the past).
Could you - or the equally pinged AlamoGirl give an example for a uniform distribution on an unbounded space?
No. Could you? How would you get your mind around the idea of "an unbounded space?"
*Sigh in relief* Of course not.
How would you get your mind around the idea of "an unbounded space?"
In mathematics? Or in physics?
In mathematics, I suppose the concept of infinity would do the job. Yet some physicists say that, practically speaking, the concept of infinity is "unconstructable"; i.e., not useful for physics. Either way, I think we're out of luck here.
The unbounded space hypothesis is part of Hawking's "imaginary time" physical cosmology. Imaginary time notwithstanding, his model still requires a beginning of real time.
If space and imaginary time are indeed like the surface of the Earth, there wouldn't be any singularities in the imaginary time direction, at which the laws of physics would break down. And there wouldn't be any boundaries, to the imaginary time space-time, just as there aren't any boundaries to the surface of the Earth. This absence of boundaries means that the laws of physics would determine the state of the universe uniquely, in imaginary time. But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time. One would still expect some sort of Big Bang singularity in real time. So real time would still have a beginning. But one wouldn't have to appeal to something outside the universe, to determine how the universe began. Instead, the way the universe started out at the Big Bang would be determined by the state of the universe in imaginary time. Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe, that we observe.
Relativity and observations (esp CMB measurements) since the 1960's accrue overwhelmingly in favor of a beginning of real space and read time (big bang, inflationary model.) Or to put it another way, perceptible four dimensional space/time is finite and thus mathematics which allow for infinity do not translate well.
Eternal cosmologies need not assume a first cause or accident, but they shift the burden of explanation into the infinite past. Although every event might be explicable by earlier events and causal laws, eternal cosmologies cannot even address why a temporally infinite cosmos exists and why it is the way it is. And there might be even deeper problems: Because we are able to assign a symbol to represent "infinity" and can manipulate such a symbol according to specified rules, one might assume that corresponding infinite entities (e.g. articles or universes) exist. But the actual (i.e. realized in contrast to potential or conceptual) physical (in contrast to the mathematical) infinite has been criticized vehemently being not constructable, implying contradictions, etc. (cf. Hilbert 1864, p. 136-151, Spitzer 2000, Stoeger, Ellis & Kirchner 2004, ch 5). If this would be correct it should also apply to an infinite past. (A future-eternal cosmos might be less problematic if it is viewed as unfolding, unbounded, i.e. only potential one.) This is a controversial issue, but it might be seen at least as another motivation to search for alternatives to past-eternal cosmologies.
Thus there must always be an uncaused cause - God - even for Max Tegmark's Level IV universe which is the only closed model known to me.
BTW, the issue of infinity aside - the universe is mathematical. Or as Eugene Wigner coined it: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.
Unbound space?..
If reality were bound does that make it a second reality?..
If reality were unbound does that make it first reality?..
Is an unbound space like an unbound Universe?..
How could you bind a Universe?.. or even Multi-verse?
What would you call the container?..
Thats really one big plastic bag.. You know; since we're shopping and all..
I guess Galaxy's revolve in something, I mean they "push" against something...
Like a cyclone.. but at the edge, the far edge of the Universe
Whats there?... Looks like the limit of mans conceptual conceiving.. What is the Universe contained in?.. Thats one bodacious designer bag.. If space is unbound that would be another way of specifing infinity.. which is a variation of eternity.. which makes human reality a cartoon.. Wonder if theres another reality beyond mankinds observation thats so real it makes human experience like a firefly in a jar..
If so, it would be a feepin shame to miss it..
It would be like a firefly released from the jar to fly off into the woods(universe).. You know, to do what fireflys do.. whatever that is.. I like fireflys..
Now try to get your mind around the possibility that there is volumetric time, not just planar present and linear past ... I suspect we have examples of it found in the stories related in the Bible, like Daniel 5, Jesus’s resurrection, and Jesus meeting Saul on the road to Damascus, to name but three of many.
Unbounded, spherical, and finite. Poincare's theorem proved to much fanfare.
For Aristotle taught us, we cannot speak of any part without the whole, and as the whole of history has not yet achieved its final end, history as yet has no form. And what has neither form nor shape cannot be subject to definition according to the univocal categories of any science. In fact, the essence of history and of the artifacts of history is antipodal to the essence of science, since historical meanings cannot be indicated by a neat positivistic formula. Uniquely human expressions are pierced with an irreducible uncertainty, their meanings akin to a perpetually open question, the corresponding answer to which is adumbrated but never attained--since what is really grasped at is a glimpse of the Infinite.This is from The Intercollegiate Review. Mrs. Don-o might be interested in this publication from isi.org. They have back issues online.
No frogs? ... But did he mention birds?
Having stared at the horizon on the ocean on many occasions or into(not at) the stars at night.. Infinity is where my mind "went".. Seeking infinity or to "be a part" of infinity was my "need" I suppose.. Maybe there is a deep need for release to infinity.. If you have lost the open ended "what is it?" out there beyond "infinity"..
Have you become a Toad Stool?.. a Mushroom?..
The childlike wonder of infinite possibilities is a blessing..
Even if "we" have to covertly peek around a corner to view them..
Adding to the pleasure..
Thanks for the thought, cornelis. I’ve been to the isi.org site, but good Lord, there’s so much there. I shall have to take it by the teaspoon :o)
Infinity is pasture for poets. It’s a fence for the rest. Thank God we’re not all poets.
A bird looks down.
True.. the sheep pen(s) in John ch 10 have walls..
The sheep in the sheep pens need to be there..
Else they would run wild..
A Sheep stampede is(would be) a bleating chinese fire drill..
Better they have walls to contain them..
The pasture on the outside(of the sheep pens) is free and peaceful(Ps 23)..
bettyboop: There is no basis to project an observation in a controlled experiment to the whole of the universe.
bezelbub: So, do you have an alternative? Which observations can be generalized? Which not?
bettyboop: The experiment itself is an artificial construct, and what is viewed is abstracted from the context in which it naturally occurs.
bezelbub: Wow, that's a quite artificial differentiation.
So, what's your problem with uniformitarianism?
Since the 1960's measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation to this day, observations support the inflationary model. And that means, of course, that there was a beginning of real space and real time.
As Jastrow pointed out, that was the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science. The first phrase of Scripture is "In the beginning, God created..."
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