Why physicists are uniquely qualified to talk about god

Hume said:
I may be missing the point of the thread.

A trained physicist can only describe physical processes. How does this qualify them to talk about god?
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If there possibly is any ontological significance to the rational intelligibility of the universe, physicists have the best insight of all the scientists because physics is the only science that really studies universal first principles and the underlying fabric of physical reality at the most fundamental level.

The best questions about the significance of a rational universe have always come from physicists IMO
 
Cypress said:
If there possibly is any ontological significance to the rational intelligibility of the universe, physicists have the best insight of all the scientists because physics is the only science that really studies universal first principles and the underlying fabric of physical reality at the most fundamental level.
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I doubt a single physicist on the planet gives a shit about ontology.
 
Hume said:
I doubt a single physicist on the planet gives a shit about ontology.
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The Copenhagen interpretation and the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics are nothing if not ontological interpretations of reality.
 
Hume said:
No, they're just standard physics.
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The Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy repeatedly describes the ontological consequences of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics:

" (1) everything in the Universe is fundamentally of quantum nature (the ontological component); and (2) everything in the Universe is ultimately describable in quantum mechanical terms (the epistemological component). Thus, we may define quantum fundamentalism to be the position holding that everything in the world is essentially quantized and that the quantum theory gives us a literal description of this nature "


https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
 
Cypress said:
If there possibly is any ontological significance to the rational intelligibility of the universe, physicists have the best insight of all the scientists because physics is the only science that really studies universal first principles and the underlying fabric of physical reality at the most fundamental level.

The best questions about the significance of a rational universe have always come from physicists IMO
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There's a hard wall between what physicists are capable of analyzing and what you imagine they are capable of analyzing.

As noted elsewhere once it gets into the metaphysical/beyond-space-and-time it is all just pure unadulterated speculation. It has no substance or solidity and is just musing.

The neutrino is a good example. It literally fell out of the math but it still took more than 25 years to confirm it even existed.

Wegener saw that the continental margins seemed to line up in places and he proposed a mechanism which was wildly wrong and unworkable but later people figured out how the system really worked.

Just because someone can make up an hypothesis doesn't mean the job is done.
 
Cypress said:
Interview with Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg is a theoretical physicist at the University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of electroweak unification.

QUESTION: Over the past decade, many physicists have been making an association between their science and "the mind of God". What do you think of this association being made?

MR. WEINBERG: It makes me nervous when physicists use the word "God" loosely, as talking about the laws of nature as the mind of God, or even Einstein's famous remarks about God playing dice with the cosmos. I think mostly they're just using the word "God" in the metaphorical sense.

By "God" most of them simply mean the laws of nature, the principles that govern everything. And, well, there's nothing wrong with the metaphor, I suppose, but the word "God" is charged with so much meaning, it carries so much historical freight, and I think one ought to be careful about how one uses it.

QUESTION: Why do you think so many physicists in recent years have made such an association?

MR. WEINBERG: It is true that this use of the word "God," this metaphorical use of the word "God" comes naturally to physicists. Theologian Paul Tellich said once that he thought that physicists were the only scientists that found it comfortable to talk about God.

The aim of physics, or at least one branch of physics, is after all to find the principles that explain the principles that explain the principles that explain everything we see in nature, to find the ultimate rational basis of the universe. And that gets fairly close in some respects to what people have associated with the word "God." But I think it is still very different. And I wouldn't refer to the laws of nature as the mind of God, or call anything discovered by physicists the ‘God this’ or the ‘God that’. It's a word that has a lot of punch to it.

QUESTION: Why do you think that over the last decade there has been a whole flurry of books about physics and the mind of God?

MR. WEINBERG: Well, I think the public is generally interested in the deeper meanings of science. I think it's natural that the latest elementary particle raises questions such as what is its mass, what is its charge, et cetera. But that isn't even so interesting -- the point is what does it mean? And if by using words like "God" you can give an impression of some deep spiritual meaning, well, that's naturally going to attract public interest.

QUESTION: What do you think about this new dialogue between science and religion that’s taking place now?

MR. WEINBERG: I know there's been a lot of talk about a reconciliation between science and religion, of ending the old conflict. And in a way it's a good thing. Certainly science in trying to get public support doesn't need to have a conflict with religion going on at the same time. In another sense I tend to deplore it. I think that part of the historical mission of science has been to teach us that we are not the playthings of supernatural intervention, that we can make our own way in the universe, and that we have to find our own sense of morality. We have to find our own sense of what we should love. And I would hate to have those gains made by science vitiated by a misguided reconciliation with religious life.

QUESTION: What do you make of the fact that perhaps the greatest scientist of this century - Albert Einstein - used to talk so often about God and physics?

MR. WEINBERG: Often people talking about science and religion point to the example of Einstein as a deeply religious scientist, but who has certainly seen as far into the laws of nature as any of us. And I think that's really quite wrong. I think that Einstein in his famous remarks about God not playing dice with the cosmos, and wanting to find out whether God had any choice in the way he created the world, was using the word "God" quite metaphorically. He said in a more serious vein that he did not believe in a god who intervened in human affairs, to whom it made sense to pray. For him God was an abstract principle of harmony and order. There have been deeply religious physicists, but I don't think you can count Einstein as one of them.

QUESTION: Do you think religion has value?

MR. WEINBERG: I think there's much to be said on both sides of that. I mean, certainly religion has produced great art. Where would architecture be without the great cathedrals and wonderful Japanese temples, and mosques.

On the moral side, however, I'm less sure about it. Certainly good causes have sometimes been mobilized under the banner of religion, but you find the opposite I think more often the case. It's more often been the motivation for us to kill each other - not only for people of one religion to kill those of another, but even within religions. After all, it was a Moslem who killed Sadat. It was a devout Jew who killed Rabin. It was a devout Hindu who killed Gandhi. And this has been going on for centuries and centuries.

I think in many respects religion is a dream - a beautiful dream often. Often a nightmare. But it's a dream from which I think it's about time we awoke. Just as a child learns about the tooth fairy and is incited by that to leave a tooth under the pillow - and you're glad that the child believes in the tooth fairy. But eventually you want the child to grow up. I think it's about time that the human species grew up in this respect.

It seems to me that with or without religion good people will behave well and bad people will do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.



full interview:
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Steven Weinberg makes a fairly good argument from the atheist perspective.

He does say that we ultimately run up against a vast abyss across which our knowledge cannot extend: in short, we can discover all the universal physical laws we want, but we can never answer where those laws came from or why they exist.

That possibly leaves room for impersonal rational agency, similar to things like the Tao, Spinoza's god, or a deist god.


Weinberg say the universe is pointless, and to find meaning in life we can do things like enjoying nature and creating art.

I've never found this viewpoint convincing. Political prisoners in North Korean concentration camps don't get to go to art museums, go on nature walks, and they probably aren't even allowed to marry and have children with other inmates. Are we really supposed to tell these people their life is pointless and meaningless?
 
Obtenebrator said:
There's a hard wall between what physicists are capable of analyzing and what you imagine they are capable of analyzing.

As noted elsewhere once it gets into the metaphysical/beyond-space-and-time it is all just pure unadulterated speculation. It has no substance or solidity and is just musing.

The neutrino is a good example. It literally fell out of the math but it still took more than 25 years to confirm it even existed.

Wegener saw that the continental margins seemed to line up in places and he proposed a mechanism which was wildly wrong and unworkable but later people figured out how the system really worked.

Just because someone can make up an hypothesis doesn't mean the job is done.
Click to expand...
A theory is not a hypothesis. Otherwise correct.
 
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