I have a friend who's been into the science of our universe for a while, and was talking to me about dark matter and its properties and whatnot.
And it got me thinking.
We cannot see dark matter, nor can we measure it in any way (from what I understand, we just know it exists because of how if affects the light around it). Do you think the universe is trying to give us a reason to believe in the existence of God? I know you might be thinking it's a stretch, but hear me out. The universe around us tells us so many things and we can discover so many truths by observing the world around us. I personally have always believed in the necessity of God existing, so I might be a bit biased as to thinking it's a sign, if you will.
What do you think? I post this under the science tag because I know most of those intrigued by science are atheists. I think that at least, if you take nothing else away from it, it's food for thought.
Dark matter is merely a placeholder, the same as X or Y in algebra, for something we don't understand. Just because we don't understand it does not mean we never will, and it does not mean that "the universe is trying to show an existence of a god." Such thinking was common a long time ago used by religions to show the existence of a god. We didn't understand quantum mechanics or know about quarks 100 years ago, does this mean in 100 years if we do fully understand dark matter can we say it doesn't prove god again? The ancient Greeks did not understand the sun rising or setting, and attributed it to Apollo riding his chariot across the sky. With that being said, we still know a lot about dark mater, such as it is about 23% of the universe (note that we can get a pretty good measure of dark matter by measuring the effects of gravity on things we can see) and that it is web-like, interwoven with regular, visible matter. We don't understand many things, this does not mean there is proof of a god, and we still understand some things surrounding dark matter. Now for a more personal side, as opposed to scientific, your "theory" is backed up only by faith that there is an all powerful creator, not by fact or logic. Also, if the universe/ god wanted to show the existence of god, wouldn't you think there would be an easier approach than that?
While I do understand where you're coming from, I've always thought that belief in something that yes, sounds ridiculous, is essential for a healthy psyche. Having faith in something you know barely anything about is very humbling and I believe that leads to a happier life.
And that's where we differ, because I'd say to not acknowledge the existence of God is to lie to oneself. Haha, well there you have it! That's all I was really going for.
For me, if I am uncertain of something, I assume the null hypothesis, unless indicated otherwise. If you had a button in front of you, and knew that there was a possibility that if you pressed the button, a car would fall onto you, would you press it? Why is God any different?
I don't think those two scenarios can be compared to one another. When done correctly, believing in God yields no negative consequences.
Well, okay, so I'm not saying believing in God has a negative consequence, but I am saying that...a better metaphor is Russell's teapot. Essentially, if you claim that God exists, then by the same logic you have no problem believing me if I tell you that a teapot is floating between Mars and Earth.
Haha, that's a very funny metaphor. But to be honest, I don't have a problem admitting that that's possible. However, I do feel as if my belief in God is based in evidence. That evidence being the impact on people's life when you can tell they're a godly person, or even all the nature around us. I accredit that to God's doing, and so that's my proof. Whether you believe it's credible proof is up to you. For me however, it's convincing.
Here's the electromagnetic spectrum. Pay careful attention to how much of it we can see: http://www.lbl.gov/images/MicroWorlds/EMSpec.gif We can only hear oscillations between 20 times per second and 16,000 times per second. Bats and dogs can hear double that. The only thing we can see out in space are things burning with the brightness of the sun, things large enough to cause gravitational perturbations visible light years away, and things spewing out radio waves energetic enough to pick it up with a dish. Much dark matter is basically "Jupiter" - big blobs of gas that happen to not be illuminated by any star. Much of it is likely antimatter. All of it is prosaic and requires no peculiar physics to describe. The only thing that makes it "dark" is our inability to see it, which is a function of it being the fuck and gone far away from any ilumination. If you had a pound of "dark matter" in your living room you wouldn't even notice it because the air would rush in and replace its relative vacuum (well, you'd probably notice some interesting annihilative effects from the antiprotons and such). Turn your question on its head: "dark matter" is a mathematical inevitability, a side product of the equations that govern star formation. You can solve for it. "Consciousness" on the other hand doesn't come out of any formula we've stumbled across. Cogito ergo sum, mutherfucker. There is more god in your question than there is in the subject you wish to discuss.
I am no expert, but I was under the impression that astronomers were fairly confident that dark matter could not possibly all be ordinary, but invisible things (like un-illuminated 'Jupiters' and anitmatter and such). I do not understand the details of exactly why, but I thought that they were confident that there is simply not enough of the ordinary stuff to explain gravitational observations - hence the mystery of its nature. But I could be wrong about that.
Where did energy originate from? Did God create it? Science sure as hell doesn't know. I think this is more the point of the conversation
Sorry, it does not work like that. The subject at hand is whether or not "science" "sure as hell" does or does not know where energy comes from. My link illustrates that if nothing else, "science" (or more accurately, experts who have devoted their careers to the study of such things) have a great body of knowledge on the subject that provides a great deal of illumination and thought on the subject. It nullifies the claim that "science sure as hell doesn't know." The argument has been succinctly and resoundingly defeated. You do not now get to drag my faith or lack thereof into the arena. This is a discussion on the limits of scientific knowledge and their causes, not on one person's willful choice in faith. You do grave disservice to your original question by attempting to discredit ANY participant through ad-hominem attack regardless of your motive.
I was just continuing the lyrics from Miracles.
Hahaha, I love the boldness of your writing.We can only hear oscillations between 20 times per second and 16,000 times per second.
You bring up an interesting point. Because we can only here those things, do you think it is against our nature to strive to do more that is inherent of us? I think nature has a way of telling us what we should and shouldn't do based on our biology, and that trying to become 'superhuman' will bring on a wide array of trouble.
I wouldn't say against God. Against our own nature is more accurate. Now this is just be rambling, but say we were only meant to see so little for a reason. What if eventually we saw something we weren't meant to see and would result in catastrophe? Hypothetical situation, but one worth pondering.
I feel this contradicts what you've been saying. I would say that jumping at shadows, however pointless it may be, is idealistic and leads to innovation through imagination.The minute you start jumping at shadows is the minute you give up reason.
(Note: This would be some non-trivial fraction of the strength of the most powerful bomb the US has ever detonated )If you had a pound of "dark matter" in your living room you wouldn't even notice it because the air would rush in and replace its relative vacuum (well, you'd probably notice some interesting annihilative effects from the antiprotons and such).
Very well put, we as humans are very limited in what we can comprehend and understand of the universe. Still, I don't think we should be too eager to reach for the easy way out - being the god theory. Just because we can't explain it now doesn't mean we never will.
I would disagree. I would say that we, as denizens of a dirt ball far out on a spiral arm, are very limited in what we can directly measure and observe. There are no barriers to comprehension. I am a fundamentally faithless individual. I do not see God in the gaps. That said, if I were a spiritual person I'd be more inclined to see "an invisible hand" in the stuff that can't be easily derived than in the stuff we only know about because we derived it.Very well put, we as humans are very limited in what we can comprehend and understand of the universe.
Because the only way we can know dark matter exists is its effect on other people. I feel this in analogous to God in that we can't see him, but you'll definitely know if He's working in a specific person's life.
A revision on the previous post: we know it exists because of its effect gravitationaly on other planets and how it bends light. I have to disagree with you, respectfully of course. I believe that it's these analogies between ourselves, nature, and the spirits beyond (if you will) that hold the most truth in our universe.
Don't fret about the nitty gritty definition of dark matter and its effects; I understand what you're meaning to say now. Would you rank these analogies you speak of above logical arguments? I don't want to get ahead of ourselves by putting words in your mouth, but I am curious why (if I'm not mistaken) you think a figurative connection between our observations of dark matter and your definition of a god is a greater truth than the reasoning that would show matter does not necessitate the existence of your idea of a god.
I don't see the arguments as two separate things, but rather I see the analogies of nature to be logical arguments themselves. I believe that these analogies have become deemed 'illogical' or 'irrational' and that is what has led to a lack of dreaming. I feel that understanding the importance of our connection with nature is incredibly undermined and that for us as humans to excel in all aspects of life, we must not discredit these analogies.
The only difference between dark matter and the matter that you can see is that it does not interact through the Strong Force or Electromagnetism. We can't see it because there was never any reason to; our eyes are designed to see what we call the visible spectrum. We can't see most radiation either but we can still observe it. This does not necessitate any divine influence.
This is not a trait unique to dark matter, plenty of experiments rely on only being able to measure the shadows on the wall. Hell, that describes like half of science!
Then shouldn't all of that be sort of signal that there are things we aren't meant to understand?
Almost my logic. I am to interpret that your words have meaning to them. Say I saw a bunch of Chinese characters. I'd have no idea what they'd mean, but I'd know there somewhere there'd be meaning to them.
I'm not speaking about one God or another. I'm saying a God in general, one capable of such incredible intelligent design and who would be responsible for initiation the big bang.
Oh I get it, so you mean God as an essence, not the religion's interpretation of his character or what not. Well. Now I remembered a Futurama episode where Bender got lost in space and found himself in this weird cosmic-creation, who had conversations with him about stuff. The thing is, that you can explain anything with just "God", but science finds more and more ways to actually measure unknowns and describe them. Even the dark matter has certain patterns of it's being because of the gravity readings around it. It's really hard to think of it as if it had it's own mind, or if it were a God. There might be something in it, like another form of life or reality, which we can't even wrap our minds around. But God as if "creator of everything and reason behind everything" not really. And as for the "universe is trying to tell us", as if "See how unknown and weird it is? Well leave it alone, you shouldn't fuck with it" :). The universe doesn't tell us anything: it just exists. We're just humans who are curious and want to study everything around them so we take a look and start "poking it with sticks".
It was previously believed that all matter in the Universe interacted with its surroundings both gravitationally (the bending of space-time) and electromagnetically. Researchers later discovered that when the mass of cosmological objects was measured gravitationally, the result was different than if it were measured based on visible matter. They concluded that there must be another type of matter which can only be observed through gravitational effects, and called it dark matter. The concept of God is so variant and open to interpretation that it is difficult to find something that would not be considered God somewhere, by someone. If by God you mean an ever-present material that has an impact on everything in the universe, then dark matter could certainly work. I would consider myself an atheist because I reject the idea of a God as a creator with purpose. But there is still so much about the universe that we don't know, the truth is, anything is possible.
What do you think of dark matter representing an intelligent higher power that doesn't have a consciousness? Say, one that is capable of intelligent design?
I am wondering how something could be intelligent and yet have no consciousness. Anyway, if this presence were to represent a sort of God, I think that for many people a God without consciousness would not be appealing at all. The idea of God loving you and caring for you is gone, since It does not have the capacity to do either of those things. There would be no reason to worship this God or pray to it. You could sit and marvel and the wonder and mystery, but it still would not provide you with any sense of purpose. Throughout history religion has continued to shape its views based on scientific discoveries. Each time something new is learned, a new gap is filled. I think it's only a matter of time before this "God of the Gaps" is totally eliminated.
I would say that IBM's Watson (the Jeopardy!-playing AI) is intelligent, but lacks a consciousness. Heck, modern smartphones are somewhat intelligent these days!
I just mentioned it because I think it's an interesting topic. Personally, I believe in a God that is all loving. But don't you think that if we do eventually fill in those gaps, there will be nothing else for us to strive for? I believe that the gaps in our knowledge and understanding are what make us human and should humble us. I do hope that there will always, regardless of technological or scientific advances, be gaps that we will never quite understand.
I agree that things would get pretty boring if all gaps were filled and everything was known. My point was that your theory on dark matter is no different than any others throughout history that have attributed unknown phenomena to divine intervention.
And I'd say all of those should at least be pondered as possible signs of something greater.
I'm intrigued by the idea of non-conscious intelligent design, as it is vastly different from what I've always heard from 'creationists' and the like. Are you suggesting a sort automatic process of creation? Some sort of entity that does not understand what it's doing, and yet it does? This is very interesting, though all the obvious questions (such as where did that come from) are still present. I'll leave those out for the sake of the discussion.
I'm not necessarily suggesting it because I do believe in God as a conscience intelligent being. The thought of a non-conscience intelligent being came up when I was having this conversation with a friend and he said that he wouldn't discredit that idea (I believe he's either atheist or agnostic). What I think is an interesting idea is the thought of an automatic creation process that is fully aware of what it is doing, but only that. That the creation is instantaneous genius, if that makes sense.
Why are humans so vain as to believe that the universe is trying to communicate to us? Bags of blood with the opinion that somehow we're special. I'm not calling you vain, BLOB_CASTLE, but why humans? Why would the creator of the universe care about a random rock, or even the specks of carbon things that interact on it? Why create a universe so gigantic that it's unfathomable, and focus on a species of life that can never hope to explore the greater universe, or maybe even leave its rock? I don't think humans are special, I don't think that if there were a God, he'd care about us. If God created the universe, we're a side act, an accident really, and something else is the main show.
Dark matter is measurable, and the reason we know it exists is because of measurements in observational astronomy. When astronomers began measuring the motion of other galaxies they found that there was a drastic difference between the luminous mass of a galaxy and its gravitating mass. This is why originally dark matter was referred to as "missing mass". Dark matter does create a gravitation lensing effect (that's how it affects light) but it also interacts gravitationally with matter around it, and these effects are all measurable. There are many ways to approach the reality of dark matter, and I personally reject these types of "God of the Gaps" approaches in favor of theories derived through physical and mathematical rigor (though there's no way to know what approach will prevail in the end). For example, one interpretation of string theory predicts that the graviton (the as-yet unobserved force-carrying particle for the gravitational force) is unique in that it is multi-dimensional (able to traverse more than the 3 spacial dimensions we observe and exist in the other dimensions postulated by string theory) and that dark matter is a gravitational "shadow" (for lack of a better term) of mass contained in other dimensions.
What I take away from this is that it's incredible that there are such forces that can do such acts that we can't and there's more to them than simple measuring and calculating. Perhaps I'm suggesting there's a spiritual side to all of these forces as well.
Relevant article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=biggest-map...
Hey I like this idea quite a bit. It can be with dark matter or it can be of the question where did energy originate from, there are countless things that scientists don't understand these days. There might be other universes out there in another dimension for all we know. People have been doing this for centuries, explaining what they did not understand as something that God has done. I think that there is a God out there, or something that has created all of this. However I do not believe that he is an ever present God guiding our actions. I have a large opinion on all of this but I can't really put my belief set into words easily. And even if there is not a God I think that the values that religion brings us should be kept. Religion is a good thing overall in my opinion.
I think that this is a wonderful piece of literature by isaac asimov describing how the universe could have been formed. Hey who knows.