I should stop listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson - he glamorizes astronomy to no end. I bet he never had his eye frozen to a telescope. By the way I thought all modern telescopes, especially those used by astronomers, were computerized - no longer requiring the eye to to be in physical contact with an eyepiece. I dunno. :chin: — TheMadFool
ou will be ignored by most people here. You are a know nothing jerk. — jacksonsprat22
You are correct about modern telescopes, which I played an early role in putting under computer control, beginning with the first astronomical space telescope, precursor to the Hubble instrument. The eyepiece got stuck in the sixties, when I did my hands-on observing. — Greylorn Ell
I suspect that this shared mistake was the consequence of adherence to a fundamentally stupid philosophical principle known as "Occam's Razor." Perhaps we can discuss this next, with the expectation of adopting better ways of looking at ideas. — Greylorn Ell
So, Occam's Razor is, let's say, problematic as a philosophical principle. But the scientific method is concerned with creating working models of reality, and in that context choosing the model that has the best predictive power with the least complexity seems entirely reasonable.
Of course the devil is in the details when trying to decide which model actually fulfills these criteria. — Echarmion
You might consider this idea in the context of Rupert Sheldrake's thoughts about this, particularly his claim, "Give me a miracle of my choice and I can explain the universe." — Greylorn Ell
Thank you, Tim, for trying to educate me. It seems a hopeless task. I began reconsidering beliefs about the nature of the beginnings 60 years ago, as a physics student. Now, a few years after failing to recover from a broken back, I'm in the process of dying-- in as ornery a manner as possible. — Greylorn Ell
I hope that you are right. — Greylorn Ell
I don't know why a discussion of Ultimate Origins, for which no one is an expert, has become so contentious. Anything you say will be a personal opinion, not a scientific fact. Anyway, here's a simple diagram of the Occam's Razor principle. It's not an irrefutable principle of Logic, just a heuristic shortcut. :cool:I suspect that this shared mistake was the consequence of adherence to a fundamentally stupid philosophical principle known as "Occam's Razor." — Greylorn Ell
Unless you have a better idea, I'd be careful about labeling serious conjectures about Ultimate Origins as "stupid". Any speculations on the First Cause or Prime Mover are necessarily Philosophical and not Scientific. Any notions about what came "before" the Big Bang are inherently Metaphysical, not Physical.These theories are equally stupid, and functionally identical.
Each proposes that the universe originated from a single thing or entity that cannot be identified or experimented upon, and is therefore absolutely non-scientific. — Greylorn Ell
I agree that both the Theistic Creation and self-existent Multiverse theories are extrapolations from the known into the unknown, — Gnomon
But Multiverse Materialism leaves those significant features of reality as Black Box Brute Facts, to be accepted without question. — Gnomon
Theists, which comprise the vast majority of humans, reason from their experience of how the world works on a local scale to how it might work on a universal scale. Since the ancients had no knowledge of abstract Energy, they attributed all causation to intelligent Agents. Energy is invisible, and is only known via its effects on Matter. Likewise "gods" are invisible, and only known via inference from Effects to Causes. So their myths of gods were the primitive "science" of their day.I'd say from the unknown to the unknown, the other from the known to the unknown. Big difference, unless you know something about "Theistic Creation" that I do not. — tim wood
The idea of a mulitiverse is to explain how the universe is. It implies no conception of causation of the universe. — jacksonsprat22
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