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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The God Particle
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
Can anyone explain in lay person's terms to me, what's the big deal with the Higgs Boson? I'm not a scientist and scientific jargon goes over my head.
[ 05. January 2015, 21:08: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Basically, the existence of the particle is predicted by the main theory that's used to explain how sub-atomic particles behave to create the world as we know it.
Apparently it's the only type of sub-atomic particle which has been predicted but hasn't been observed. If they find it, it's another thumbs up for the theory. On the other hand, if it's proven not to exist, then that common theory has to be thrown out.
EDIT: Apparently, one of the key things it's needed for is to explain why anything has mass!
[ 04. July 2012, 02:56: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
I don't really get it either. But like orfeo says its a big deal because it could prove existing theoretical frameworks.
Alister McGrath talks about it and its relation to "faith" here.
Like God, it's the best explanation for existing data. But it hasn't been proven yet (or something)
[ 04. July 2012, 03:05: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
On the CBC radio, in between tornado warnings and lightening crackles on the drive home tonight, they said it is about a subatomic energy particle that magically (my word) becomes matter. And one of those interviewed said some scientists call it the 'god damn particle' because of the difficulty detecting its one trillionth of second existence.
If I believed in a God with complete control and involvement in the world perhaps I could believe the storms were a commentary on the scientists' boldness in claiming to have captured God in their particle colliding machines, or I could consider The Head of CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength. That is, I think the science is probably another brick in the wall of knowledge, but is is not the wall itself.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
The God Particle is a catchy book title that stuck. As Wikipedia indicates, a lot of scientists really dislike the name because it completely overstates the importance of the particle. It's important yes, but I doubt that any physicist would claim that it has anything to do with explaining/proving/disproving God whatsoever.
[ 04. July 2012, 03:35: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Yep, the name "God Particle" does over egg the importance a wee bit.
In physics you have two significant concept - fields and particles. A field is something that is spread out and affects all sorts of things - think "magnetic field" or "gravitational field". Particles are discrete packets of mass/energy. One of the profound insights that built the Standard model is that fields and particles are not seperate - the effect of a field is mediated by particles, the effect of particles behaves like a field. The Higgs field, mediated by the Higgs boson, is the theoretical explanation for mass - in a very crude illustration it's like a viscous liquid that 'drags' on particles with massive particles being 'dragged' more, except that the 'drag' isn't related to motion (if that makes any sense).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Metro the other day used the analogy that it was like a group of zombies crowding around particles and slowing them down - the bigger particles were slowed down, the smaller ones slipped through.
Warning: I have just about no understanding of physics at all.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I was just watching a news item about this a minute ago, and was wondering if anyone was talking about it here. Are they announcing it soon?
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
As far as I can tell the announcement will be a carefully balanced mix of "we have made an important scientific advance which means we are much surer the Higgs boson exists" and "more research is needed to confirm exactly what we've found".
Evidence here: quote:
"if and when a new particle is discovered, it will not be clear straight away that it is the Higgs. Physicists will need to characterise its properties in order to confirm whether it is the version of the Higgs predicted by the Standard Model, a "non-conformist" Higgs that hints at new laws of physics, or something else entirely.
This will involve years of detailed and difficult work, said Dr Tony Weidberg, a University of Oxford physicist and member of one of the LHC's experimental teams, Atlas."
Being roughly translated, this means "please extend our research funding by a few more decades".
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
orfeo: If they find it, it's another thumbs up for the theory.
The funny thing is: no scientist is really happy with this theory (the Standard Model). I guess quite a number of them were hoping not to find the Higgs boson, so that they could throw it out.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The God Particle is a catchy book title that stuck. As Wikipedia indicates, a lot of scientists really dislike the name because it completely overstates the importance of the particle. It's important yes, but I doubt that any physicist would claim that it has anything to do with explaining/proving/disproving God whatsoever.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
The funny thing is: no scientist is really happy with this theory (the Standard Model). I guess quite a number of them were hoping not to find the Higgs boson, so that they could throw it out.
I'm not sure why anybody ever called this the "God particle", that really is a bad name. And as a former high energy particle physicist I bet some money against colleagues over a decade ago that the Standard Model would hold, based on the sophisticated "theory" that nature dislikes the aestheticism physicist have used to extend their theories in the complete absence of data, and is about to teach us a painful lesson...
However, if the Standard Model holds and if we find the corresponding Higgs (rather than say supersymmetry and the Higgs belonging to that), then a massive so-called "fine tuning problem" arises. The universe as we find it would be incredibly unlikely, in the sense that some parameters would have to have very precise values or otherwise the world would not be as it is. "Fine tuning problems" are by many considered to be circumstantial evidence for the existence of God. Certainly one can understand that a omnipotent and omniscient Designer could adjust all of the universe's settings to highly specific values. And alternate explanations rely on unobserved entities in a way that one can consider at least as "fantastic", e.g., the idea that there is an infinite number of universes co-existing, that cover all possibilities, of which we happen to inhabit the one which allows us to come into being.
So, if the Standard Model holds true and its Higgs is found, then talk of a "God particle" may not be entirely unjustified after all...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Alan Cresswell
Very interesting information - wish I'd learnt more about Physics when I was younger!
Re the 'God particle': Just adding one more small point to the references made above - I understand the publishers thought the book would sell better if it was called 'The God Particle' and not the 'Goddam; one!!
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...alternate explanations rely on unobserved entities in a way that one can consider at least as "fantastic", e.g., the idea that there is an infinite number of universes co-existing, that cover all possibilities, of which we happen to inhabit the one which allows us to come into being.
Nonsense- that is not at all fantastic. It makes obvious sense that I'm English, because I happened to be born in England. We happen to inhabit this universe, so it's totally non-fantastic that it is a universe in which conditions are supportive of our being here to observe it. The probability of this universe being just right is 1. It is a certainty.
Yes, this does not speak to the possibility of countless other universes, in which conditions were not quite right, but the fact that we are in this one is totally non-fantastic.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
IngoB: And as a former high energy particle physicist I bet some money against colleagues over a decade ago that the Standard Model would hold
At this very same moment, somewhere deep underground with the LHC at CERN in Geneva:
- Professor Verrücktowicz! Professor Verrücktowicz! We found the Higgs boson! See? It's there, without a doubt!
- Donner und Blitzen! This means that we're going to lose our bet with IngoB. Quick, cover it up! We can always say that it's too many sigma's.
(I'm sorry, but this works best with the standard German mad scientist accent ![[Biased]](wink.gif) )
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, if the Standard Model holds and if we find the corresponding Higgs (rather than say supersymmetry and the Higgs belonging to that), then a massive so-called "fine tuning problem" arises. The universe as we find it would be incredibly unlikely, in the sense that some parameters would have to have very precise values or otherwise the world would not be as it is.
This is true, but it's hardly significant. Had any of those values been different then the universe would have been different. Maybe intelligent life would never have evolved. Maybe life wouldn't have evolved at all. Maybe matter wouldn't even have coalesced into stars and planets.
The parameters were what they were, and here we are. But that's only significant if you think that life as we know it was the deliberate end point of the universe, rather than something that evolved to fit the parameters that already existed.
A puddle is just an amount of water filling a depression in the ground. Imagine someone saying "that depression must have been deliberately created to be exactly that shape, or else the puddle couldn't have existed!" - they'd be laughed at because it's obvious that the puddle merely followed the existing contours. Nobody thought up the specific shape of puddle and then carved the earth in just the right way to create it - it just happened that way because that's the way it happened to be.
So it is with this universe. Attempts to prove that intelligent "fine tuning" must have been involved so as to produce the universe we see are like attempts to prove "fine tuning" must have been involved to produce the exact puddle that is observed.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...alternate explanations rely on unobserved entities in a way that one can consider at least as "fantastic", e.g., the idea that there is an infinite number of universes co-existing, that cover all possibilities, of which we happen to inhabit the one which allows us to come into being.
Nonsense- that is not at all fantastic. It makes obvious sense that I'm English, because I happened to be born in England. We happen to inhabit this universe, so it's totally non-fantastic that it is a universe in which conditions are supportive of our being here to observe it. The probability of this universe being just right is 1. It is a certainty.
Yes, this does not speak to the possibility of countless other universes, in which conditions were not quite right, but the fact that we are in this one is totally non-fantastic.
Yup.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
orfeo: The probability of this universe being just right is 1. It is a certainty.
But to me, this doesn't answer the question: "Why is the Universe like this?"
I know that for a lot of people, it answers the question. They never succeeded to convince me.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Ah, we have confirmation ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Not quite. I rest my case quote:
More work will be needed to be certain that what they see is a Higgs, however.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
BBC news, quoted by Eutychus: More work will be needed to be certain that what they see is a Higgs, however.
I have no problem with that. I'm not in the 'scientists are money wolfs' camp.
I heard that Peter Higgs was present at the CERN press conference. That's nice.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
IngoB, Yorick, Marvin
Have you slipped into Anthropic Principle territory? Or am I also guilty of talking nonsense? It's this stuff about fine tuning and puddles!
The universe is, and is also extremely unlikely? But then if it wasn't this way, there wouldn't be observers to observe it and realise just how unlikely it is? Is that a reasonable summary?
So, so far as God and God-particles go, this connection between "is" and "is extremely unlikely" tells us ....
that maybe we're on the edge of a Dead Horse?
[ 04. July 2012, 09:53: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
In other words, we might be on an extreme end of a reality bell curve. But we are there.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The universe is, and is also extremely unlikely?
But that's just it. This is no dichotomy. The universe is NOT extremely unlikely. Life is not extremely improbable- it is absolutely inevitable! The 'fine tuning problem' is therefore not a problem if you allow that the conditions which exist do in fact exist, which seems pretty straightforward. (And this is not a tautological thing if we can allow that other universes are theoretically possible in which the conditions are not suited to life.)
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Sigh. The comments about fine-tuning were thoroughly predictable...
Now, the real deal is something like this: You observe someone flipping a coin. It's heads. He does that another 52 times. Every single time it comes up heads. Now, admittedly, the probability of this happening is one, because it just did. Also, admittedly, this could happen by pure chance with a regular coin. Nevertheless, you would have to be positively demented to not suspect that there is some trick to all this.
To complete the analogy to science, we would have the case that we are only allowed to see these 53 coin throws. We do not get to see any other. But somehow we are allowed to study those 53 throws as much as we want. And we are allowed to look at all other stuff happening at the same time, in particular also at other stuff falling etc. Maybe this happens on Groundhog Day and we are re-living the same reality over and over again. Whatever.
What we would likely get then is some theory about how this coin throw universe works. But we would have a problem. The "Standard Model of coin throws" is predicting that there should be a 50:50 chance for heads, making 53 consecutive heads not impossible but highly unlikely. For a while we entertained the "Supersymmetry Model of coin throws", which claimed that both sides of the coin actually were heads. However using a very, very expensive Low-latency High-res Camera (LHC) we were able to look at the coin sides in mid-throw and have now confirmed at 5 sigma that the sides are different, that there is a so-called "Tails" side as predicted by Peter Tails almost 50 years ago.
At which point someone may argue that if the Standard Model holds true, then maybe this is evidence for some higher power making the bloody coin come up heads all the time. Oh no, say others, we have no evidence for that. After all, we are only observing these 53 throws, we are not observing any other throws. Hence while in some abstract sense the probability of this happening is ridiculously low, in fact the probability of it happening is one, since it does. Right? Right. True enough to be irrefutable in an ultimate sense. Still, that remains a positively demented position to take. Because if the Standard Model holds, then that abstract sense of probability does apply. While we do not see all the other possibilities, in terms of that model they do exist as virtual possibilities, making the likelihood of what we see ridiculously low. It then remains reasonable to assume that there is some trick beyond the Standard Model happening there, whatever it might be. And if no trick is ever found in nature that would explain this, then it is reasonable to assume that the trick is happening beyond nature. Unless that is impossible (or at least even less likely in some sense or the other). But this has not been demonstrated.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
@no_prophet
To quote Philip Purser Hallard:
quote:
C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.)
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
IngoB, your coin-tossing analogy doesn’t work here. You make it seem that there’s a possibility that the result could be anything other than 53 heads, but this is not the case, so although it may seem remarkable that all 53 throws come up heads, it actually isn’t. It is not demented to think there’s no trick involved.
You claim that the conditions necessary for the emergence of life are hugely improbable compared with all other alternatives for the universe that we may imagine. But this is a meaningless comparison. You claim that 53 heads is too improbable when one of those throws may have resulted in a tails. But none of those throws could have resulted in tails, or else the conditions would not have been met. In other words, 53 heads were certain, since the possibility of existence in which any tail are thrown is nil.
I can’t remember the source, but one of the Copenhagen crowd famously said that those who struggle with how mathematically unlikely this universe is (and therefore how Special it must be) fail to take into account all the other universes that didn’t make it. That’s a LOT of coin throws.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
My understanding of probability and how it relates to evidence for god is cobbled together from the internet and pub conversations but here is the jist of it. Imagine if i took a normal pack of cards, shuffeled them and began to deal. The odds of dealing thirteen specified cards are about 635,000,000,000 to one. Nobody would look on in awe and tell me I just did the impossible and insist there must be something supernatural going on.
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Yorick wrote: quote:
I can’t remember the source, but one of the Copenhagen crowd famously said that those who struggle with how mathematically unlikely this universe is (and therefore how Special it must be) fail to take into account all the other universes that didn’t make it. That’s a LOT of coin throws.
Ah yes - the supernaturalist explanation. I'm impressed! Though I must admit that in a (fantasy) world of orbiting teapots, invisible pink unicorns and four-sided triangles, an infinite number of non-existent universes probably rates as small beer.
Actually, I may believe you, but it does rather drive a coach and horses through William of Ockham's little idea.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
[Puts on Host Hat
Think I'll leave it here. Another round or two may see the clear emergence of the Dead Horse, but there are other things to talk about re Higgs Boson so it seems fair to allow a bit of scope. B62 Purg Host. Takes off Hat]
And speaking of which ..
Would I be wrong in assuming that this is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but it may turn out to be the end of the beginning? That is, a case can now be made for both continuing long term research - and maybe even bigger and better atom-smashers and particle colliders?
In short, do these latest results look like keeping particle physicists in employment for quite a long time to come? Are there already plans to do more?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
IngoB, your coin-tossing analogy doesn’t work here. You make it seem that there’s a possibility that the result could be anything other than 53 heads, but this is not the case, so although it may seem remarkable that all 53 throws come up heads, it actually isn’t. It is not demented to think there’s no trick involved.
You claim that the conditions necessary for the emergence of life are hugely improbable compared with all other alternatives for the universe that we may imagine. But this is a meaningless comparison. You claim that 53 heads is too improbable when one of those throws may have resulted in a tails. But none of those throws could have resulted in tails, or else the conditions would not have been met. In other words, 53 heads were certain, since the possibility of existence in which any tail are thrown is nil.
I can’t remember the source, but one of the Copenhagen crowd famously said that those who struggle with how mathematically unlikely this universe is (and therefore how Special it must be) fail to take into account all the other universes that didn’t make it. That’s a LOT of coin throws.
Also to quote Wikipedia:
quote:
When a sequence of independent trials of a random process is observed to contain a remarkably long run in which some possible outcome did not occur (for example, when a roulette ball ended up on black 26 times in a row, and not even once on red, as reportedly happened on August 18, 1913, in the Monte Carlo Casino[295]), the underrepresented outcome is often believed then to be more likely for the next trial: it is thought to be "due".[296][297][298] This misconception is known as the gambler's fallacy; in reality, by the definition of statistical independence, that outcome is just as likely or unlikely on the next trial as always—a property sometimes informally described by the phrase, "the system has no memory".
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
...it does rather drive a coach and horses through William of Ockham's little idea.
I think it’s a perspective thing. Ockham requires that the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true. From my perspective, a) is a simpler explanation than b), where: a) an infinite number of universes is theoretically possible, of which only one exists because it is the only one in which the conditions are right for life;
b) God created this universe.
The problem with perspective is that we tend to look out from our own eyes. It doesn’t strike me that my existence is the least bit unlikely, even though every single one of my ancestors had to survive and breed successfully in order for me to be here- the odds of which must be gazillions to one against. And the reason it doesn’t seem all that unlikely is that, well, I’m here, aren’t I?
To add: sorry for this tangent, B62 and everyone. I will stop now!
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
My understanding of probability and how it relates to evidence for god is cobbled together from the internet and pub conversations but here is the jist of it. Imagine if i took a normal pack of cards, shuffeled them and began to deal. The odds of dealing thirteen specified cards are about 635,000,000,000 to one. Nobody would look on in awe and tell me I just did the impossible and insist there must be something supernatural going on.
I think your argument relies on a pack of cards being the same class of thing as a universe. Theories about card shuffling are accessible to us by testing empirically, hence (if your stated odds are correct), we can demonstrate that. Universes are not even accessible to us observationally. We are existent within a minute part of one, and can only observe even a tiny part of that. Theories about multiple universes are simply speculation. So I think your analogy falls at this point. It's not really a question of supernaturalism or not, unless of course you consider absolutely everything beyond the reach of empirical science to be supernaturalism.
(The "supernaturalist explanation" comment in my reply to Yorick was a little joke for his personal appreciation as I'm sure he realised)
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
[Puts on Host Hat
Think I'll leave it here. Another round or two may see the clear emergence of the Dead Horse, but there are other things to talk about re Higgs Boson so it seems fair to allow a bit of scope. B62 Purg Host. Takes off Hat]
Sorry, what precisely is the supposed DH here? Fine-tuning? Identified as DH according to which of the criteria?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
To add: sorry for this tangent, B62 and everyone. I will stop now!
Erk! Sorry from me too. I'll shut up right now.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Creation and evolution, IngoB. And as I said, the conversation was not there yet. Just kind of "hanging around in the wings" ..
Or so I thought. 'Twas a little steer, no more.
Here's the kind of stuff I had in mind.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
An afterthought, for Yorick and Honest Ron.
I think it's fine to discuss Anthropic Principle aspects as a quite properly related tangent here, provided that the topic does not drift into the creation and evolution Dead Horse. You've both been around long enough to steer around a fine distinction. I hope you can see the point.
It's a marginal issue, but I suppose it might be worth a bit of canter around in the Styx if any of you would like that.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Yup. I feel this is clear and fair, and there's no need for Stygian canteration. Um. Canterage?
Thanks B62.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
Life is not extremely improbable- it is absolutely inevitable!
Unfortunately for you, you have committed one of the major fallacies of reasoning, which is confusing necessary and sufficient conditions.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Fortunately for me, I don't give a fuck.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I just want to stick my oar in about one principle of scientific endeavour. Nothing has been proved, support has been provided for the alternate hypothesis. Experimentation can only ever disprove - not prove.
This matters; for the public understanding of science (its why we can't prove with certainty such and such a thing is safe), and it matters in understanding why in a few decades time there will be a paradigm shift and the standard model will become "wrong".
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
You make it seem that there’s a possibility that the result could be anything other than 53 heads, but this is not the case, so although it may seem remarkable that all 53 throws come up heads, it actually isn’t. It is not demented to think there’s no trick involved.
Of course something else could have been the case, both in the analogy and in reality. The important question there is what the "could" gets defined by. And - as explicitly pointed out - it does get defined by the model one builds, i.e., by the understanding one has of the world. That which we think is true about a coin toss makes it not only entirely possible that some other result than 53 heads in a row could occur, it indeed makes that exceedingly likely. Of course, we could be mistaken in our understanding of a coin toss. That is just what stands behind building different models of explanation: a model where both sides of the coin show heads finds it very easy to explain 53 heads in a row. But within the terms of any one model it is the role of reason to explore whether it is a likely explanation of what we see in the world. This process we call science.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
But none of those throws could have resulted in tails, or else the conditions would not have been met. In other words, 53 heads were certain, since the possibility of existence in which any tail are thrown is nil.
This simply is demented reasoning. I am not asking the question "How likely is it that observers observe themselves to be in a universe that allows the existence of observers?" Clearly that is certain in an entirely trivial way. I am asking the question: "Given what observers understand about the functioning of the universe they find themselves in, how likely would it have been that the same functional mechanisms could have produced universes that do not support observers (and yes, hence would not be observed)?" If the answer to this is "exceedingly likely" then these observers can be considered "incredibly lucky" to exist, according to their own understanding of how the world works.
As already mentioned, the probability estimate is based on virtual worlds, on those that could exist - according to our understanding - but do not. We do not need to observe these virtual worlds, indeed, obviously we cannot. Our conclusion is in no way or form restricted by the fact that in those virtual worlds observers could not exist.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I can’t remember the source, but one of the Copenhagen crowd famously said that those who struggle with how mathematically unlikely this universe is (and therefore how Special it must be) fail to take into account all the other universes that didn’t make it. That’s a LOT of coin throws.
You clearly do not realize that this - unattributed and paraphrased - comment presupposes exactly the logic I have laid out above, unlike your response. The "many universes" explanation precisely reflects the force of the argument I'm making here. That is sensible, even though the given explanation is not particularly compelling. The "many universes" idea tries to deal with the problem of likelihood by saying that while the chances are 10^16 to one (or whatever), there are also a huge number of worlds (usually an "infinite" number gets claimed), so that we should not be particularly surprised that one of them ends up like ours. In response to the infinitesimal likelihood, the sample size got cranked up astronomically. This is no denial of infinitesimal likelihood, this is the obvious "statistical" fudge for it! Unfortunately, to posit a huge or even infinite number of entities that are unobserved, and by definition always will remains so, is hardly satisfying. That really is spitting Ockham in the face...
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Imagine if i took a normal pack of cards, shuffeled them and began to deal. The odds of dealing thirteen specified cards are about 635,000,000,000 to one. Nobody would look on in awe and tell me I just did the impossible and insist there must be something supernatural going on.
Say you have no clue about poker whatsoever, but you are given a videostream where you can see countless games being played by top level players, including the chips that get exchanged. Slowly you begin reconstructing the basic rules of poker from your observations, and even start to understand some of the "higher rules" that govern these games. Then one day you see someone getting three royal flushes in a row, taking all the chips available in the process. Are you perhaps a little bit suspicious? In spite of this having the same probability as any other three sets of cards?
The point is that the very thing you have been using to understand what poker is, what the basic hands are, how the money is paid out, what strategies are successful, is nothing but tracking statistics and finding patterns. Now you get a totally crass statistic and pattern, and suddenly you are supposed to stop thinking this way and merely consider this as a "random event". Well, if this is "random", then why not all the other stuff that you have been tracking? Perhaps there is no poker being played here, perhaps it's all just random and just by pure chance it all looked as if it was going according to some set of rules. Is that not possible? It sure is. Why should you suddenly stop doing what you have been doing? If you just maintained your usual approach, you could come to the conclusion that there may be some entity you will tentatively call "card shark" which has manipulated the usual distribution of cards in order to achieve this totally unlikely event. And would that not be a reasonable thing to propose?
The natural scientific reaction to seeing patterns is to seek an explanation. Every pattern could be random, but if the odds are so terribly against it then we expect there to be an explanation. Furthermore, this incredibly unlikely pattern occurs in a context of already established meaning. It's not just any pattern. Just like a royal flush is not just any arrangement of cards. It's what wins you the money for sure. If you see it three times in a row to get all the money, you must wonder. Hence practically no scientist would accept that the Higgs really has been fine-tuned by chance. There must be something going on there.
One could declare all of science and technology to be a gigantic gambler's fallacy, which will begin to unravel any moment now as this incredibly unlikely series of events which made the universe look very regular comes to an end. But while that is possible, it is just not reasonable to think that way.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Ockham requires that the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true. From my perspective, a) is a simpler explanation than b), where: a) an infinite number of universes is theoretically possible, of which only one exists because it is the only one in which the conditions are right for life; b) God created this universe.
It is a thoroughly ridiculous definition of simplicity, which considers an infinity of utterly unobservable causes to be "simpler" than a single cause that potentially could be observed in some of its effects.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
Fortunately for me, I don't give a fuck.
An interesting variant of "I admit I'm wrong".
Well thought up.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Prof Brian Cox (pbuh) said it's the most significant discovery in his lifetime, he's very excited.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Alan Cresswell
Very interesting information - wish I'd learnt more about Physics when I was younger!
Re the 'God particle': Just adding one more small point to the references made above - I understand the publishers thought the book would sell better if it was called 'The God Particle' and not the 'Goddam; one!!
HA!
I was just about to say, "I bet Michael Crichton loves the name..."
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Peter Higgs postulated the existence of a particle. Years later scientists find something very similar. But even if the particle is identical to Higgs hypothesis, expect the particle to be named after someone in the team that found it.
After the euphoria dies down the name Higgs Boson will be history.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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redderfreak
Shipmate
# 15191
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Posted
What's god got to do with the Higgs boson? It's just a couple of words we've come up with to describe something we hope to see.
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You know I just couldn't make it by myself, I'm a little too blind to see
Posts: 287 | From: Exeter | Registered: Sep 2009
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Oh my goodness. The shirt I pulled out of the cupboard this morning more or less at random fits me PERFECTLY. It's INCREDIBLE!
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Surely the fine-tuning thing is an example of selection bias. The only people who can look at the parameters are people for whom they were finely tuned to the point that they came into being. It's like concluding that 9 out of 10 Americans own a Justin Bieber album because 90% of respondents to a survey in "17" magazine answered that way.
[ 05. July 2012, 01:49: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
I just want to stick my oar in about one principle of scientific endeavour. Nothing has been proved, support has been provided for the alternate hypothesis. Experimentation can only ever disprove - not prove.
It is, of course, even worse than that. Not only can't we prove anything we can't disprove something either (after all, 'disprove' is simply prove something is wrong).
The CERN announcement amounts to saying we have very strong evidence of a previously unknown particle existing with a mass of 125GeV. Even the 5 sigma criterion they've applied is a relatively low level of statistical significance (similar to the odds of tossing 20 heads in a row), and a statistical fluke is still a remote possibility. The evidence that this is the Higgs is even weaker, and the subsequent chance that it's a different particle correspondingly high.
The theory predicts certain properties for the Higgs boson. One of those is mass (and, the theory is particularly weak at predicting it's mass - which is one reason it's taken so long to find). There are other properties of the particle, such as how it's expected to decay, that are much harder to measure than mass. We'll need a lot more data to determine those other properties to a level of statistical significance that would enable us to more from "we've discovered a particle with a mass of 125GeV" to "we've discovered the Higgs boson". And, the chances are high that some measured properties of the particle are slightly different from the theoretical predictions - which then raises the question "have we found the Higgs, and the theory is slightly wrong, or have we found a different particle that happens to have very similar properties to the Higgs?"
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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