Human knowledge and science – the blind crippled baby :
What is a Singularity – What is a constant
Is it just me? So many times I am amazed at how primitive and infantile (and blind?) our knowledge is. Our sciences are just an attempt to create a model that resembles the world we live in, but we fail to realize that this model we are creating isn’t really reality: It’s just how we see it, influenced by our shortsightedness, short lifespan, and many imperfections. The model is actually our partial interpretation of what we experience (which is also partial).
Maybe – just maybe – the whole path of sciences is wrong? Maybe we shouldn’t have moved through analysis into more breakups in explanation? More division and re-division? Could it be that this is due to the influence of our senses – whose playground is the physical world? These are valid questions.. There could have been an alternate route that would give more general and bigger answers..
All our knowledge and analysis is too primitive and flawed (there are a lot of factors) to make sure statements about anything – let alone about divinity. Anyway here I remember the beautiful example of Newton – Einstein: Newton came up with the formula that governs the force – acceleration relationship. A few hundred years later Einstein came up with a more general formula for the same relationship, in the light of which Newton’s previous one was simply an approximation – a special case! It’s as if Newton’s formula is a projection of Einstein’s 3-Dimensional formula on a 2-Dimensional plane… so it will miss a dimension… I am inclined to think that Einstein’s formulas and knowledge, as are all our sciences, approximations of the truth and projections on a plane with fewer dimensions. This is why there is a singularity (a point with no laws) in our sciences… do you think that there is that point… NO .. it’s simply the universe’s way of saying : “ you idiots, you’re missing a few dimensions” … the same applies for constants… there are six constants in the laws of physics (including the speed of light, the charge of the electron, etc…) that just appear at certain values, and any change of which will make our universe impossible (instead of the current – highly improbable). So.. why do we have them? AGAIN, because everything we know is an approximation of something.. Some projection on a less-dimensional space, and it happens that these things are what helps avoid looking for the more general equation … the one equation for everything … the ultimately simple complete equation!
Probability, Infinity and God
Euler when told by the queen empress Catherine that Diderot's atheistic arguments are making quite a significant noise, and asked to prove to him that god indeed exists..... He told Diderot:
"Sir, (a+b^n)/z = x, hence God exists.", Diderot had no answer, and returned to France ashamed.
This formula can't be understood nor proven nor disproven mathematically... maybe this is what Euler was trying to say ...
Word Play, Language and the literality of Man
One interesting thing about the atheism discussion is the tendency to exploit the literal statements of some believers and of the religions. In one place in the ‘God Delusion’ Dawkins says that he is not talking about the god of the scientists but the god of men… Well, it’s the same thing. Some people will have the ability to more deeply understand the concept, and their image of this will be far less literal and personal.
It is very important here to take a deeper look at many things discussed by religion, be it heaven, earth, divinity, goodness and so on. What do they represent, and – sometimes – what difference does it make to a believer, who sees his own heaven, shows of acrobatics, wordplay and elaborate byzantine discussions.
The Time scale – Evolutionary eyes again
I just need to re-mention this point here because it is part of our perception and knowledge problem. Evolution by natural selection seemed to be such a huge thing that disproves creationism to Mr. dawkins because it proved that life was created along a stretch of time and not in one shot – well, BIG DEAL!
Our perception of time means nothing. Its – again – something we do to try and portray the world around us, and so the words ‘creating the universe’ imply no possible relation with a certain time frame and not the other, so creation can happen in 1 second, 1 day, or 15 billion years. Time is just one of the dimensions on our own plane – the one with too few dimensions, remember?
Anyway I thought that it would be interesting here to mention that this is something very old, and it doesn’t require any kind of strong imagination.. I think that it is literally mentioned in the Quran that a day in god’s time is equal to thousands of years of man’s (metaphor for the impossibility of measurement).
A last interesting point related to the value of the timescale as far as divinity is concerned is the proof that is quoted in the ‘God Delusion’ that omnipotent (all powerful) and omniscient (all knowing) are mutually exclusive so god can’t possibly have both of them (the non-existent god). He says that since god is omniscient he knows the future, so he becomes not omnipotent because he can no longer change the future (he would cease being omniscient if he did).
Come on!! Really ?? We might as well give god a watch for him to know the time! Can anybody get more literal than that? This is an example of how our perception of reality, limitedness of knowledge affects our ability to understand beyond a certain limited space.
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