Design and Observership in Cosmology, Misc

This document is an edited transcript of an impromptu talk by Mark F. Sharlow. In this talk, Dr. Sharlow examines one of the common arguments for God’s existence. He suggests that this argument is wrong, but not for the reason that skeptics usually cite. Instead, he points out a deeper error — and shows that by understanding this mistake, we can gain new insights into evolution and design.

We develop a Bayesian framework for thinking about the way evidence about the here and now can bear on hypotheses about the qualitative character of the world as a whole, including hypotheses according to which the total population of the world is infinite. We show how this framework makes sense of the practice cosmologists have recently adopted in their reasoning about such hypotheses.

This is one of the best popular cosmology books ever written and Guth is now (2016) a top physics Professor at MIT. He tells the extremely complex story of inflation and related areas of particle physics in such an absorbing style that it reads like a detective novel-in fact, it is a detective novel-how he and others found out how the universe started! The interweaving of his personal story and that of many colleagues along with their photos and many wonderfully (...) clear diagrams allows just the right amount of relaxation from the intensity of the physics. In places the style reminds one of Watson´s famous book ``The Double Helix``. He tells how his work on magnetic monopoles and spontaneous symmetry breaking led to the discovery of the inflationary theory of the very early universe (ca. 10 to minus 35 seconds!). -/- Along the way you will learn many gems that should stay with you a long time such as: the observed universe(e.g., everything the Hubble telescope etc. can see out to ca. 15 billion light years when the universe began) is likely just a vanishingly tiny part of the entire inhomogeneous universe which is about 10 to the 23rd times larger; the big bang probably took place simultaneously and homogeneously in our observed universe; there probably have been and will continue to be an infinite number of big bangs in an infinite number of universes for an infinite time; when a bang happens, everything(space, time, all the elements) from the previous universe are destroyed; the stretching of space can happen at speeds much greater than the speed of light; our entire observed universe lies in a single bubble out of an endless number so there may be trillions of trillions just in our own entire(pocket) universe(and there may be an endless number of such); none of these infinite number of universes interact-i.e., we can never find out anything about the others; each universe started with its own big bang and will eventually collapse to create a new big bang; all this implies that the whole universe is fractal in nature and thus infinitely regresses to ever more universes(which can lead one to thinking of it as a giant hologram); disagreements between the endless(hundreds at least) variations of inflation are sometimes due to lack of awareness that different definitions of time are being used; some theories suggest that there was a first big bang but we can never find out what happened before it; nevertheless it appears increasingly plausible that there was no beginning but rather an eternal cycle of the destruction and creation, each being the beginning of spacetime for that universe; to start a universe you need about 25g of matter in a 10 to minus 26cm diameter sphere with a false vacuum and a singularity(white hole). -/- He deliberately spends little time on the endless variants of inflation such as chaotic, expanded and supernatural inflation or on dark matter´, supersymmetry and string theory, though they were well known at the time as you can find by reading other books such as Michio Kaku´s `Hyperspace` (see my review) and countless others. Of course much has happened since this book appeared but it still serves as an excellent background volume so cheap now it’s free for the cost of mailing. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (shrink)

I ask whether what we know about the universe from modern physics and cosmology, including fine-tuning, provides compelling evidence for the existence of God, and answer largely in the negative.

Philosophy and Cosmology is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal that focuses on theoretical and conceptual problems and issues in philosophical and cosmological research. Philosophy and Cosmology is published by International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology. The objective of Philosophy and Cosmology is to promote exchange and collaboration among philosophers, social, technical and natural science researchers throughout the world. In pursuit of this objective the journal not only publishes high quality research papers but also ensures that the published papers (...) achieve broad international credibility. Philosophy and Cosmology publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual frameworks, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, and book reviews. (shrink)

Philosophy and Cosmology is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal that focuses on theoretical and conceptual problems and issues in philosophical and cosmological research. Philosophy and Cosmology is published by International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology. The objective of Philosophy and Cosmology is to promote exchange and collaboration among philosophers, social, technical and natural science researchers throughout the world. In pursuit of this objective the journal not only publishes high quality research papers but also ensures that the published papers (...) achieve broad international credibility. Philosophy and Cosmology publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual frameworks, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, and book reviews. At present scientific-philosophical Journal Philosophy and Cosmology is an annual printing issue which focuses on publishing of researches at the sphere of philosophy of Space also with creation of integrated informational area for Space observation and outer space exploration. (shrink)

How are inferences to design affected when one makes the (plausible) assumption that the universe is spatially infinite? I will show that arguments for the existence of God based on the improbable development of life don’t go through. I will also show that the model of design inferences promulgated by William Dembski is flawed. My model for design inferences has the (desirable) consequence that there are circumstances where a seeming miracle can count as evidence for the existence of God, even (...) if one would expect that type of event to naturalistically occur in a spatially infinite universe. (shrink)

This small book continues the theoretical study on the structure of the universe. It examines the category of “time” in the light of a new cosmological model proposed by the author in his book “The Origin of Mankind”. It is generally accepted that after researches of A. Einstein, А. Minkovsky and others space and time are considered in their interrelation, as the continuum. Nevertheless, the category of “time” is still a bone of contention and a cause of a great deal (...) of misunderstanding in contemporary science. In philosophy, mathematics, physics it has different meanings. In this book the author dares to give more precise definition of the category of “time” from the point of view of the contemporary level of knowledge. (shrink)