Well, I don't know if I could say it's theology masquerading as science, but yes, everything you just said would be a natural implication of that idea. Which brings about questions of what do we mean by "the universe", "reality", and "everything." -- Jonathan Sherwood Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer University of Rochester 585-273-4726
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Eric Scoles <[email protected]> wrote: > Yes, this is mind blowing. But let's take a moment to clearly articulate > what this means: > It would mean that the actions of humans determines the nature of the > universe. Not only that there is no objective reality apart from our > thinking about it, but also that we determine reality. > It would mean that there is a God, and we are It. > > This is, flatly, religion. > > And of course it's fundamentally not science, since it can't be falsified. > > It's really just theology masquerading as science. > > > > On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Jonathan Sherwood < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hawking had a mind-blowing idea recently. He said that it may be that the >> origin of the universe has not yet been determined, but that the >> observations we are currently making will determine what the origin was, >> retroactively. >> Since quantum mechanics completely thwarts our intuition, I think it's >> natural for us to be fascinated with it. There's a lot of data to suggest QM >> does mess with time, at least in the way we understand time. You could view >> entanglement as an event in the future making sure an event in the past >> happens a certain way. >> >> >> -- >> Jonathan Sherwood >> Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer >> University of Rochester >> 585-273-4726 >> >> >> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Eric Scoles <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> >>> Yes, but it probably wouldn't be very good. Unless the Higgs God (or is >>> it the Higgs Demiurge? Anti-Higgs God?) intervened to make it wildly >>> successful as a means of stopping the LHC once and for all.... >>> >>> I do find this fascination with stories about quantum theory to be ... >>> fascinating. Meta-fascinating, I guess. It seems to me that people are >>> fascinated with something quite other than what the theory's actually about. >>> All these personifications of the concepts involved -- doesn't that make >>> anyone uncomfortable? It makes my freaking head spin. We might as well be >>> talking about angels -- I suspect it would have as much bearing on the >>> actual physics involved. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Jonathan Sherwood < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> This just has "fodder for a science fiction story" plastered all over >>>> it. >>>> >>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Jonathan Sherwood >>>> Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer >>>> University of Rochester >>>> 585-273-4726 >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> eric scoles ([email protected]) >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > > > -- > eric scoles ([email protected]) > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
