Warped Passages - Lisa Randall Professor of Physics, Harvard University.

In light of recent discussions this may be of
interest to some here. See a link to the book
at the very bottom of this page.

First some comments:

To: Right Wing Professor; Alamo-Girl; marron; hosepipe

What metaphysical naturalist has ever prevented
you from reconciling your religious beliefs with
science? Dennett and Dawkins don't have a goon squad.

You know very well that is not the point at
issue, RWP. The reconciliation of religious
belief and science is fundamentally a private
affair. But granting all that, all the same there
are public consequences. What it all seems to
boil down to is that metaphysical naturalists
seem to refuse joining in a "public conversation"
regarding the issue at all. It seems they want to
keep science "special," that is, specialized, the
exclusive province of specialists ­ and held
sacred from sources of public pollution, I
gather. But if the "public pollution" derives
from the same source that furnishes "the taxpayer
monies," then I'd have to say: There's got to be
a "reality check" out there, a "reality
adjustment," which maybe is gonna bite the
metaphysical naturalists on the butt, sooner or later.

One thing that Niels Bohr hotly insisted on, with
which I totally agree, is that science is
ultimately a public endeavor. He went to far as
to say, if the scientist could not make his work
intelligible to the man on the street, then his
science is effectively worthless. (My
transcription of his statement from memory.)

Bohr IMHO is simply, spectacularly, the very
model of scientific epistemological purity. And
clearly he saw science preeminently has a social
dimension that must not be undervalued, overlooked, or just plain forgotten.

Don't know where this leaves our "argument" RWP. Thanks so much for writing!

51 posted on 03/26/2006 7:03:06 PM EST by betty
boop http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts?page=51#51

To: betty boop; marron; hosepipe; Gondring; rkhampton

Thank you so much for your excellent post and
this fascinating sidebar, betty boop!

Seems to me that those whose sense of reality is
based on energy/matter - or matter in all its
motions – or microscope to telescope – nature did
it v God did it – must appeal to the anthropic
principle to accept the fine tuning of the
universe and cope with the observer problem.

This is an impoverished, narrow view of reality
which ignores such things as these:
The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in natural systems. (Wigner)
That, regardless of cosmology (inflationary,
multi-verse, multi-world, imaginary time, cyclic,
ekpyrotic, steady state, hesitating, etc.) there
is always a beginning simply because all
cosmologies – even brane theory – rely on geometry for physical causation.
That a form of causation is “if not for A, C
would not be” – thus were it not for space/time, events would not occur, etc.
That physical causation is therefore the effect
of a cause, i.e. the first cause.
That there may be more than one temporal
dimension and more than three spatial dimensions
which our vision and minds do not perceive, naturally.
That we cannot say something is random in the
system when do not yet know what the system “is”.
That we do not yet know of a source for
information (successful communication) in the
universe – and yet it is the most fundamental
difference between that which is alive and that which is non-life/death.
That we have not yet either created or observed
the Higgs field/boson – and even if we had, it
would only account for some 5% of the critical density of the universe.
That matter in this four dimensional perception
may actually be a shadow of momenta in a fifth
dimension – or even multiply imaged from a single
particle in a fifth, time-like dimension.

As you have observed several times of the forum,
betty boop, much of science – owing to its
self-imposed methodological naturalism - only
looks at two of the Aristotlean causes (efficient and material).

Nevertheless, mathematics which includes
information theory – and physics do not begin
with such presuppositions but rather formalize
axioms and postulates germane to the
investigation. Thus if “it” is undecidable then
undecidability is the conclusion (e.g.
wave/particle duality) – and the absence of
evidence is evidence of absence. And no theory is held as if "Holy writ".

Truly, I expect the mathematicians and physicists
who have been invited to the table by the
biologists, to bring their epistemological zeal
to the table with them – and the result will be
that they consider all of the four Aristotlean causes.

As Christians we know the formal cause and final
cause is Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:12-20, Rev
22:13) - and math/science is not capable of
speaking to Truth (only fact). But I nevertheless
hope they do better in the years to come.

56 posted on 03/27/2006 2:07:35 AM EST by
Alamo-Girl http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts?page=56#56

*
"..At bottom there are two different ways to view
the fact that space/time does not pre-exist but
is created as the universe expands. (inflationary model/big bang)

One side looks to energy/matter as the cause of
geometry (space/time) - the other looks to
geometry as the cause of energy/matter.

You are on the former side of the debate, I am on the latter.

Einstein said that he wanted to transmute the
base wood of matter to the pure marble of
geometry. I agree. So obviously would such physicists as Vafa, Randall, etc.

IOW, that phenomenon which appears to be clumpy
dark matter (center of the galaxy, black hole,
etc.) represents 25% of the critical density.
Dark energy, OTOH, which has a force in
opposition to gravity (like a space/time outdent
instead of indent) makes up some 70% of the critical density.

The solution itself may be inter-dimensional. As
Lisa Randall has noted, gravity may be the
smallest of the four fundamental forces because it is inter-dimensional. "

59 posted on 03/27/2006 4:34:01 PM EST by
Alamo-Girl http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts?page=59#59

*
To: gobucks; Alamo-Girl; marron; hosepipe;
PatrickHenry; Right Wing Professor; Doctor Stochastic

"If ever there was a more obscure woman on earth,
and yet, she was scheduled in, giving her power
point presentation on the very heart of what you referred to above."

She is hardly obscure at all in her tremendous
new book, Warped Passages. There she is the very
model of clarity dealing with difficult subjects,
trying to make them plain to the intelligent
generalist. She uses analogies a lot for helps.
IMHO, this is an absolutely first-rate work;
Randall will win a big science literary prize for
it; and she will sell a ton of books in the meanwhile. And deservedly so. ..."

67 posted on 03/28/2006 12:44:53 AM EST by betty
boop http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts?page=67#67

*
To: betty boop

There is no conceivable way (that I know of) that
TRUTH could possibly be the output or result of "a random development.

Thank you for your comments, betty.
"If the solar system was brought about by an
accidental collision, then the appearance of
organic life on this planet was also an accident,
and the whole evolution of Man was an accident
too. If so, then all our present thoughts are
mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the
movement of atoms. And this holds for the
thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as
well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts
- i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely
accidental by-products, why should we believe
them to be true? I see no reason for believing
that one accident should be able to give me a
correct account of all the other accidents. It's
like expecting that the accidental shape taken by
the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give
you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset."
C.S. Lewis

Even the enemies of TRUTH are forced to presuppose it in order to attack it.

57 posted on 03/27/2006 11:21:08 AM EST by
Diamond http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts?page=57#57

To: Diamond

Even the enemies of TRUTH are forced to presuppose it in order to attack it.

And to attack it requires logic -- another
"non-corporeal." Materialist reductionism is
self-refuting it seems. It just plain doesn't make any sense.

Thanks so much for your excellent post, Diamond!

76 posted on 03/28/2006 9:25:49 AM EST by betty
boop (The world of Appearance is Reality’s cloak -- "Nature loves to hide.")
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts?page=76#76

*
Click link to see picture of Lisa Randall
Professor of Physics, PhD 1987, Harvard University.
71 posted on 03/28/2006 6:40:26 AM EST by
PatrickHenry http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts?page=71#71

Warped Passages : Unraveling the Mysteries of the
Universe's Hidden Dimensions ~ Lisa Randall
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060531088/002-4487329-1790433?v=glance&n=283155

The above comments are in the FR thread entitled:
Expected Guests: John D. Barrow and the Anthropic Principle
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601435/posts

~ Janice
Received on Tue Mar 28 10:05:54 2006