Can Science Find God?

[The Happy Humanist]

This question is mainly (but not exclusively!) for the scientists out there.

I have been debating a gentleman in email, who asked me what I would consider as proof of God. I thought about it, and decided that, if a few dozen stars were to suddenly rearrange themselves to spell out "Howdy, it's me! -- GOD", I might be swayed. OK, I would be seriously challenged. OK, OK, I'd be singing Hosannahs and heading for the confessional.

He replied that he doubted it, that astronomers would merely chalk it up to "coinicdence", or swamp gas, or just "unknown." That got me to thinking. I know that Science is supposedly neutral w/r/t God and the supernatural; that is, it doesn't deny they exist, it just isn't set up to study that realm, or magisterium, so it can't say anything about them.

But what about a case like this, where God (finally) shows his hand unmistakably? Am I right in saying that Science would be forced to at least acknowledge that "after significant study, the phenomenon in question seems to be attributable to an entuty called God, through mechanisms currently unknown to us, but which may involve supernatural forces"? Or is my friend right, that there still could be and would be no acknowledgement?

Basically, would Science be allowed to acknowledge God if it found him?

[Ian Parker]

OK, if every explanation is naturalistic then why can't we say that there is no such thing as the supernatural? Bearing this in mind, if we did witness an event that could not be explained with known phenomena, we would have to reserve judgement... but as I said, this would amount to the supernatural leaving no trace that we could identify

What is in fact the case is that God is almost but not completely merged. As far as judgement is concerned justification by faith pure and simple has always struck me as rather unjust. Should a sincere intellectual mistake consign you to Hell? I have stated that salvation is Heat and Sweat. That is the way to understand it. However if wrong belief leads to wrong actions, particularly if it is something as gross as suicide bombing. I agree entirely with Tony Blair. I cannot add anything on that score. However the whole idea of paradise seems rather like "Beam me up Scottie. God is not like that.

Why would Evolution being on a timeline account for alleged inconsistencies in its statistics?

Let us take an example H.erectus with broca's area. H.erectus could not speak so Broca's area would be no use to him. However signals from the future meant that he had Broca's area. The maths of timelines is very similar to a collective process in Physics. Like paramagnetism changing to ferromagnetism at a given temperature.

Of course randomness is not the sole process. This theory is only ever put forward by those who wish to shoot it down. But you know better than this so I wonder why you state such an obvious thing? Directed randomness is the key to the process. A simple Google search for 'Directed randomness' yields a wealth of papers from all walks of science robotics and general and engineering. Conclusion: It works.

Of course randomness can be investigated. What we do is quite simple. We run a Genetic Algorithm and find out if we can reproduce Evolution. Working with GAs we can state the following :-

1) Most of the variety of life is due to Evolution. Speciation so often cited as being unproved is in fact simple with GAs. In fact the simplest speciating GA is a calculus problem If we define fitness as being the integral of

(x-a)(x-b)(x-c) a<b<c and put organisms at x=b we get 2 populations. Speciation occurs iff there is more than one minimum in phase space.

2) Evolution cannot account for intelligence. GAs cannot produce it. If they could the problem of AI would have been solved!

[QED]

What is in fact the case is that God is almost but not completely merged. As far as judgement is concerned justification by faith pure and simple has always struck me as rather unjust. Should a sincere intellectual mistake consign you to Hell? I have stated that salvation is Heat and Sweat. That is the way to understand it. However if wrong belief leads to wrong actions, particularly if it is something as gross as suicide bombing. I agree entirely with Tony Blair. I cannot add anything on that score. However the whole idea of paradise seems rather like "Beam me up Scottie. God is not like that.

Not sure why we've lumped the track to judgment, I was talking about us judging if an event was supernatural or not. But if we are considering what harm faith in the absence of evidence can do, there can be no better example than suicide bombing. If people are free to think they know what god wishes of them, there is no restraint on their actions. They can feel that they are acting with the approval of the ultimate authority.

Why would Evolution being on a timeline account for alleged inconsistencies in its statistics?

Let us take an example H.erectus with broca's area. H.erectus could not speak so Broca's area would be no use to him. However signals from the future meant that he had Broca's area. The maths of timelines is very similar to a collective process in Physics. Like paramagnetism changing to ferromagnetism at a given temperature.

Signals from the future? OK, that's interesting. I would have thought the more likely explanation is that Brocas area provided some useful function even if it was not quite the function we see today.

Of course randomness is not the sole process. This theory is only ever put forward by those who wish to shoot it down. But you know better than this so I wonder why you state such an obvious thing? Directed randomness is the key to the process. A simple Google search for 'Directed randomness' yields a wealth of papers from all walks of science robotics and general and engineering. Conclusion: It works.

Of course randomness can be investigated. What we do is quite simple. We run a Genetic Algorithm and find out if we can reproduce Evolution. Working with GAs we can state the following :-

1) Most of the variety of life is due to Evolution. Speciation so often cited as being unproved is in fact simple with GAs. In fact the simplest speciating GA is a calculus problem If we define fitness as being the integral of

(x-a)(x-b)(x-c) a<b<c and put organisms at x=b we get 2 populations. Speciation occurs iff there is more than one minimum in phase space.

2) Evolution cannot account for intelligence. GAs cannot produce it. If they could the problem of AI would have been solved!

Re. point 2, you seem to forget that multicellular life took around 3 billion years to gear itself up enough to produce primitive intelligence of the sort that could find its way out of a maze. This hints at a reason why our own attempts have so far proved unsuccessful. It's not something that falls out of a genetic programming tool overnight.

[Ian Parker]

Signals from the future? OK, that's interesting. I would have thought the more likely explanation is that Brocas area provided some useful function even if it was not quite the function we see today.

The idea of signals from the future also fits in with NASA's discussion of Faster Than Light travel.

H.Erectus had Brocas area without the thickening of the spine, and breadth control. If it were the other way round it would be easier to explain. He escaped from predators by plunging into rivers and doing crawl. Precognition seems to be quite well established, it cannot be done to order, you will never be able to step into a FTL spacecraft.

Re. point 2, you seem to forget that multicellular life took around 3 billion years to gear itself up enough to produce primitive intelligence of the sort that could find its way out of a maze. This hints at a reason why our own attempts have so far proved unsuccessful. It's not something that falls out of a genetic programming tool overnight.

This is a little bit misleading. 3 billion years was the time it took to get photosynthesis going and an oxygen rich environment. The interesting thing about a detailed analysis of AI is that a GA is required to enable true intelligence to develop. If there is no GA we have Goedel's theorem :- We cannot describe ourselves. Evolutionary timescales are a little bit misleading in that :-

1) Generation time, at any rate for the higher organisms, is long.
2) Convergence is slow as only a small proportion of genes refer to intelligence.
3) GAs have been known to loop.

[QED]

A quick glance at the OP shows that we're getting well off-topic, but I don't think 3 billion years is misleading at all. Given that this is was what it took to oxygenate the atmosphere enough to support higher metabolisms then a similar prerequisite might be required of whatever state space is required for AI. At the very least it presents a picture of an infinitely patient process. Such patience is the hallmark of unconscious development processes rather than ID. Maybe a fly-by ID that seeds the freshly cooled planet I suppose (without a real prospect for seeing the results) -- but how much more far-fetched is this compared to a process that sorts itself out from the abundant raw materials an energy gradients available.

But if the science we're discussing here has led us to god, then we can only recognize him as the seeder of the planet. And how could we tell him apart from an early ET?

[Ian Parker]

But if the science we're discussing here has led us to god, then we can only recognize him as the seeder of the planet. And how could we tell him apart from an early ET?

If the Universe is one shot ET does not help us as ET would have to evolve too. ET is only useful in the context of Infinite Gynothropism where intelligent life starts once, against the odds and then exists for an infinite time. In 13.7 billion years ET is of no help. If we have an infinitely old hyperuniverse - just possibly.

We are off the point and not off the point is you see what I mean. We have wandered a bit. My point is that Science has no whip, scientists do not have to subscribe to any particular set of beliefs. They are only committed to searching and being open minded. Clearly as facts emerge minds close.

Given, for example, that intelligence cannot evolve and that armies of PhDs are incompatible with Darwin scientists must ask themselves.

1) Is there any way the impossible can be achieved, could I make my demonstrations more rigorous.

2) Is there an alternative along the lines of infinite gynothropism or timelines.

[paulbaylis]

Depends what you mean by evidence, fruitcake.
Everything you see with your eyeballs could be considered evidence of God. It's whether you believe God did it or not.

Basically, would Science be allowed to acknowledge God if it found him?

Of course it would. Science acknowledges what is real. If God were shown to be real, then science would acknowledge God. There is no big conspiracy against God, there simply isn't any evidence to support the existence of God.

Funny, isn't it?

[paulbaylis]

You are full of shite. This is the second time you have made a claim that "every single blah blah has been proven false". I can tell you a few that have never been proven false...Medjugorje for one. What ones have you heard of that have been proven false. You're totally full of it and shouldn't be allowed to post here until you back up your claims. Moderators, deal with this idiot.

It can't say anything about the supernatural because, by definition, the supernatural can never be detected, studied, etc. How convenient! Any time the supernatural interacts with the natural in such a way that it might leave evidence, it stops being supernatural. However, in every single case, without exception, that a religion reports such interaction, it turns out to be false.

The Bible claims God created the universe in 6 days? No go.
The Bible claims God caused a world-wide flood? Nope.
The Bible claims the dead came back to life? Try again.

So where are all these 'proofs' that anything the Bible, or any other religious book, say are true? Science is still waiting to see them.

[paulbaylis]

That's the best and wisest thing I've ever heard. Well done bro.

It really quite humorous, if you step back and consider this: God probably does not want the kind of high profile being suggested! It really works counter to what He has set in motion. Were we to have that “proof” that God is “closer than your breath”, but on an obvious material level, I suspect we would immediately dump every single problem on God’s lap, and refuse to make any effort to resolve them. We tend to like the easy way out, and that does not move us towards wisdom. Few would grow at all.

If God just wanted to entertain us with some parlor tricks, it would be a pretty simple affair, since even our magicians can WOW most of us.

As I’ve mentioned before, with science its an “every” approach; Everyone has to experience the same results, or we do not agree. With God, its an “each” approach; We are unique, and God approaches us as individuals. That means our very limited abilities will produce very limited views of God. So, we argue with each other about whose view is “right”. Absurd! God is INFINITE, and therefore all our views are all WRONG! It is our intent by which we are ultimately judged, not by the accuracy of our version of Diety.

So, no, I do not think science is going to discover God; At least not until we all have grown wise, and that will take a very long time.

IMHO

Bro Dave

[otseng]

Depends what you mean by evidence, fruitcake.

You are full of shite.

You're totally full of it and shouldn't be allowed to post here until you back up your claims. Moderators, deal with this idiot.

Actually, you are the one who needs to be dealt with by your gross violation of the rules. Since you are a newbie here, I'll let you go with an informal warning. Please carefully read through the rules. It's not that long and it'll serve you well if you follow them. Especially, please note rule 14, "In general, all members are to be civil and respectful." Thank you for your cooperation.

[Ian Parker]

As I’ve mentioned before, with science its an “every” approach; Everyone has to experience the same results, or we do not agree. With God, its an “each” approach; We are unique, and God approaches us as individuals. That means our very limited abilities will produce very limited views of God. So, we argue with each other about whose view is “right”. Absurd! God is INFINITE, and therefore all our views are all WRONG! It is our intent by which we are ultimately judged, not by the accuracy of our version of Diety.

So, no, I do not think science is going to discover God; At least not until we all have grown wise, and that will take a very long time.

I agree that everyone's approach is highly individual but what we really want to ask is "Is there a core of fact that we all agree about?" We can ask some quite defined questions such as:-

1) Is it reasonable that Evolution occurred by chance.
2) Is there a power of prayer? Can it be demonstated objectively.

I think that perhaps ones religious experience is something which occurs on an irregular basis. Science can in fact demonstrate this using statistical arguments. However no one is likely to have true religious experiences on a REGULAR basis. Randi's $million is therefore safe.

IMHO

Bro Dave

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