06Mar 2023 by Post

Sean Carroll: “How Could an Immaterial Mind Affect the Body?”

amino acids, analgesic, Aristotle, arthritis, biology, body, causation, chirality, Darvon, documentary, efficient cause, enantiomer, final cause, formal cause, Francis Bacon, free will, individuation, Johns Hopkins University, libertarian free will, material cause, matter, mind, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, penicillamine, philosophy, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, quantum mechanics, sculptor, sculpture, Sean Carroll, statue, trailer
Aristotle noted that when we think carefully about natural causes we see that there are four distinct ways that causes can lead to effects in nature. Source
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30Mar 2022 by Post

Unexplained — Maybe Unexplainable — Numbers Control the Universe

Carl Sagan, Contact (novel), Cosmos (magazine), electromagnetism, extraterrestrials, Fibonacci sequence, fine structure constant, Golden Ratio, Intelligent Design, Jordan Ellenberg, Laurence Eaves, Paul Davies, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, pi, Planck’s constant, quantum mechanics, relativity, Richard Feynman, University of Nottingham, Wolfgang Pauli
Richard Feynman called 1/137, the fine structure constant, “a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man.” Source
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06Jan 2020 by Post

Astrophysicist Asks: Did God Create the Universe?

Aristotle, astrophysicist, atheists, Big Bang, cosmic inflation, Darwinian evolution, Ethan Siegel, Evidence, Faith & Science, First Mover, Five Ways, general relativity, Heresy, information, logic, microwave radiation, natural theology, non-overlapping magisteria, Ontological Argument, Physics, Earth & Space, quantum mechanics, reason, red shift, special relativity, Stephen Jay Gould, theists, theory of potency, Thomas Aquinas, universe
Ethan Siegel is an astrophysicist who writes a lot for the public. I like his stuff; he explains interesting complex topics well. But his recent essay “Ask Ethan: Did God Create the Universe?” misses the mark in a sadly common way. He not only botches logic and the metaphysics. He botches science.  Seigel answers a reader’s question about the existence of God. The reader asks: I am very interested in space and with who made us and what made us… what do you have to say about people who say that “God” made us? Seigel is interested in this question too, and he replies (I summarize his argument — read his whole essay for details): You can ask a question whose answer is not only knowable, but already known. You…
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11Dec 2019 by Post

Are the Laws of the Universe “Inevitable”?

Adam Falkowski, Albert Einstein, beauty of nature, Big Bang, black holes, CEA Saclay, Daniel Baumann, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Laurentiu Rodina, laws of the universe, mathematics, metric tensor, Natalie Wolchover, Nobel Prize, Paul Dirac, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, Quanta Magazine, quantum mechanics, Shakespearean sonnet, Sistine Chapel, Steven Weinberg, theory of gravity, University of Amsterdam
Natalie Wolchover at Quanta Magazine has a thoughtful but misguided essay on the “inevitability” of the laws of nature. She writes: Compared to the unsolved mysteries of the universe, far less gets said about one of the most profound facts to have crystallized in physics over the past half-century: To an astonishing degree, nature is the way it is because it couldn’t be any different. “There’s just no freedom in the laws of physics that we have,” said Daniel Baumann, a theoretical physicist at the University of Amsterdam. She cites Baumann to describe the incredible interlocked intricacy of physical laws: [L]aws essentially dictate one another through their mutual consistency — that nature “pulls itself up by its own bootstraps.” The idea turns out to explain a huge amount about the universe.…
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