If God cannot communicate to the humans he has created, in a concise and understood way, then he is not all-powerful. — chatterbears

Yeah well, he's not. Unless he can break the rules of logic, he is never omnipotent because that will create numerous paradoxes. And if he can break logic, then we have no reason to believe him neither.

Also, people are not misinterpreting scientists, they are misunderstanding them.

In this sense, it is not much different.

The OP might want to clear up the usage of probability. Probability is not just simply probability that a certain outcome is expected out of all possible outcomes in a single event. There can be multiple event. It might not be an "event" in the first place.

For example, quantum mechanical "transition" can also be considered a probability: the average number of an event happening per unit time. Indeed, if we look at a single-photon emitter, the timing in which the emitter absorbs / emits a photon (which is an electronic transition) is uncertain to some degree. If we plot the time-intensity in which the photon was emitted after a pulse of excitation light for thousands of times and add them up, then we'll get an exponential function. As such, "probability" of big bang happening makes no sense unless there is some sort of units to describe probability.

To make matters worse, the question implicitly assume that timespace is a valid thing even before big bang. Scientifically speaking, the big bang theory does not explain anything about something that happened "before" it but only after it. There are plenty of scientists postulating that timespace was a thing before big bang, but plenty of others postulating that timespace itself was nonexistent. The reason is simple. Because no one knows and Big Bang theory does not rely on unobservables such as the "universe" outside the unborn universe. Since I am no theoretical cosmologist, I cannot defend either position.

No you are not, which is the problem. You also do not seem to understand how I defined measurement neither, which also a problem. And to accuse me of something I did not say it makes it even more of a problem. You are also twisting and playing around with words so that it can support your point, which is just plain wrong.

But that is okay. I don't expect to you, because it doesn't matter anymore. I am not going to discuss this matter with your ill-conceived statements.


Oh by the way, I am a scientist and I do measurement every weekdays. I have a PhD in chemistry and I skipped a year in doing so. Thank you very much.

See, you used the word "perfectly ordinary sense of measurement". This is why I am saying this is purely terminology problem.

To be extreme, if I define pear in biological terms, then both western pear and eastern pear are pear. However, if I define pear as in western pear, then eastern pear is not pear. This is the sort of argument you and I have been making, which I feel is pointless.

If you define "measurement" the way you define then recognition does not involves measurement. However, if you define "measurement" in the way I define, then recognition involves measurement. However, it is not a common practice to define "measurement" the way you do.

Well I am not a neuroscientist, and to be honest I can only refer to lectures from neuroscientists, the most famous out of them was Edvard I. Moser in a conference meeting.

So short answer, no. I don't know specific scientific papers.


However, it should be kept in mind that the only reason we have a disagreement is because we do not share the same definition of measurement. Your definition of measurement seems to be very instrumentally and computationally quantitative, compared to me and Tomseltje's definition which is more general.

But brain do process information in a neuro-network in an extremely complicated but interesting way, which is, from a neuroscientific standpoint, can be effectively called "measurement" and "processing".
I understand well that these words are ill-defined, but this is merely a terminology problem and does not change the fact that the brain process information in a way that involves "measurement".

Alas there is evidence that this is the case. I assume we don't disagree on the deviation. But since there are several tests for iq, we have a certain iq test that has results that are on average 12 points lower than another iq test. So either one of the tests is inaccurate and off by 12 points, or both of the tests are inaccurate, off by 0-12 points. — Tomseltje

I indeed agree that there is a deviation.

Can you be a little more specific about "several" test? Are they test with completely different problems? Or are they test with similar problems? This is particularly important when discussing statistics.

Well, what I said wasn't really philosophy but science. It is scientifically well established that brain performs measurement in processing information. Just that it is not the sort of things you are imagining "measurements" to be.

But yes, it is slightly off-topic so let's leave it at that.

You are probably right on this part, however, that doesn't mean it's an indication of my level of understanding statistics. More likely it's just a translation error, since I'm not a native english speaker.
My mathematical training was in my native language. So thanks for pointing it out. — Tomseltje

I understand. English is also not my mother tongue so I can understand it happens.

My apologies for causing confusion on this, I didn't think the difference was that relevant to the subject in this case. Since on a single measurement the precision influences the accuracy. Wich applies in this subject, since generally the individuals only get tested once for iq.

I am still unsure if you are correctly understanding statistics.

Precision and accuracy are independent parameters. That means the value of one of them will not influence the value of the other. Simply put, precision DOES NOT influence the accuracy. You still seem to confuse these two terms. It doesn't matter how many times the measurement is done (even if zero measurement is done). Any test has its own intrinsic precision and accuracy.


For example, let's say we are trying to measure the radiation level of a copper-made statue using a Geiger counter.

Geiger counter works by having a electromagnetic wave (of sufficient photon energy like radiation from radioactive material) come into the probe where the gas inside the probe is ionized and it results in electrical current in presence of an applied voltage.

Now, we put the Geiger counter in a perfectly dark nonradioactive box. What would the meter say? It will still have some non-zero number. But why? The Geiger counter is put inside a box where no radiation exists so it shouldn't be detecting anything. This is called "dark counts". There are several reasons why this happens and I won't get to that, but severely high dark counts (for some poorly constructed counters) will suffer high signal-to-noise ratio.

We take the Geiger counter out and go outside. There are tons of radiation source (sunlight, radiation from the ground, etc). This will also worsen the signal-to-noise ratio. Now you go measure the radioactivity of a copper-made statue. Copper naturally have radioactive isotopes, so its decay will emit radiation. Picking this radiation up with Geiger counter gives you a value.

Now, you measure just once (let's say 2 seconds). How accurate is that value? Well it should be inaccurate. That is, the noise level (due to dark count and background radiation) causes a shift to a higher value than it is supposed to. Lack of accuracy due to noise is often processed by taking something called "background measurement". You take the average value of the background and subtract it from the signal value you got. Also, quantum efficiency of Geiger counter is not 100%. Most manuals provide how efficient Geiger counter is at detecting radiation. So you also account for this by dividing the efficiency from the value.

Good, now we should be getting the accurate value. Then how about precision?

If you have done only one single measurement, then you have no way of knowing the precision of the Geiger counter. In statistical terms, this is called "level of confidence". You need to do numerous measurement until the value (in average) converges to a certain value. Most of the time, 95% level of confidence is good enough statistically, but this depends on the exact measurement you are trying to do as well as personal preferences. If you have done only one measurement, then the level of confidence should be extremely low.


So to apply this to what you said about "IQ test only being performed once for each person", this refers to the level of confidence. It is not about precision (although not unrelated)or accuracy. Please be sure to understand these concepts before claiming that you understand statistics. The more you talk about it gives me higher level of confidence that you don't understand statistics.


(To the moderators, I apologize for the slightly off-topic post but the knowledge of statistics is crucially important for understanding IQ tests)

I refer you to my final reply to FLUX23 - I believe you must have a very specific theory of mind-brain identity involving a very specific definition of "measurement" and probably some representational view of perception such that merely in seeing something, a measurement is always being made. Under any run-of-the-mill notion of "measurement" seeing and "s" on a page and measuring an "s" on a page are entirely different kinds of activities. — MetaphysicsNow

Well you didn't mention anything about my reply after your final reply, which I assume you just simply missed.

However, the measurement thing is a well established theory. Your brain is basically a computer with machine learning capability ("machine learning" is a term btw), although not as precise. It is probably your definition of "measurement" which is too specialized and specific compared to my definition of "measurement" which is more general (and is more often used).

Human brain is quite dynamic and smart in a sense. The fact that you don't remember every single details of what you see, for example now, is because your brain automatically filters out unnecessary information the moment you look at something, because when you look at something you have an objective to look at that certain "something". A great deal of measurement and processing is going on in your brain. Interestingly most of the time it is done instantaneously and unconsciously.

For example, because of scotoma, certain detail of your vision is not available. However, your brain automatically processes the blind spot with surrounding details. This is pure measurement and is a fascinating fact.

Our disagreement seems to be based upon your more narrow definition of the word 'to measure', You seem to apply it as something that only is about determining quantity. Perhaps if you reconsider my statements under this definition of measure : the act or process of ascertaining the extent, dimensions, or quantity of something;
In case of determining wether an 's' or a 'z' is spelled, you made a measurement of what you saw. Otherwise, how could you tell the two apart? — Tomseltje

This, I must wholeheartedly agree.

No, ground state in physics is not a relative term based on the ambient conditions.

Why are you assuming it is me who doesn't understand statistics? As long as you don't provide a decent argument for your assumption, you are just poisoning the well.
I might just as easily assume that it is you who doesn't understand statistics to the degree required to understand me correctly, and don't know enough about how iq tests are made and applied to give an accurate response. An assertion that at least is substanciated by the fact that you failed provide any actual counterargument to my statements, but instead opted for an ad hominem fallacy. — Tomseltje

Well, I am not assuming you don't understand statistics. I am assuring you that you don't understand statistics.

I am a photochemistry/photophysics guy who uses quantum mechanics and statistics for life, with a formal education. Plus a PhD if you are not convinced. Of course, I am not saying I am absolutely right (I can be wrong), but I have a good background to say you are wrong.

But fair enough, here's why:

If by accurate you mean there is no error margin, they are inaccurate, but the same goes for measuring liquids in a measuring cylinder. The only difference is that measuring cylinders used in chemistry are less inaccurate than iq tests. — Tomseltje

I used the common definition of "accuracy" meant for laymans. There is a difference between "precision" and "accuracy". To give you the answer, I was talking about BOTH "accuracy" and "precision" and these two are different. However, you confused "accuracy" with "precision". Being unable to comprehend this correctly based on my post, even though these two are are explicitly explained in my post, shows that you either do not have definitive concept to understand this, or just simply not well trained.

The concept of accuracy and precision is one of the most basic things you learn in statistics. It is most likely one of the first things you learn in statistics classes as well. That is the level of understanding you will need to be able to talk about something like IQ tests, because IQ test is based on statistics.

(It seems like in psychology, terms like "validity" and "reliability" are being used to talk about "accuracy" and "precision", but of course I am not a psychology guy and I don't think these terminology is relevant here.)

Odd that you seem to think I don't understand statistics, while we at least seem to agree on this statement. Perhaps your reply was adressed at someone else? — Tomseltje

Well I agree with the specific statement you referred to in the quote. But that has nothing to do with what I said above.

The reason I am saying you need to use standard physical terms is simply because you are talking about physics. You can't just make up a word that already has a name for. "Ground state" is a defined term in physics, so you must use the term according to that definition.

Conceptual things often need the right terminology or it is only going to cause more confusion, especially when the concepts have already been well established. What you written up there caused more confusion than anything else.

I am sorry but like I said, the terminology is going everywhere in your post and it is really hard to comprehend...I advise you use more standard physical terms.

Well you said:

Since the speed of light is the constant — Metaphysician Undercover

which was ambiguous.


I am not attacking you or anything. But your extra remark "equivocation makes a meaningless argument" is starting to show some hostility. Relax.

Well, the brain is actually "smarter" than that.

First, you don't need to recognize every single pieces of the face to recognize that it is a face. Your concept within your brain provides criteria for face recognition (which have been continuously refined ever since you were born and you opened your eyes).

Second, experience allows you to recognize certain faces faster than the other. With experience (for example your face, which you probably see very often in the mirror), your criteria is optimized for certain cases. For example, if you had tons of paint on your face, sometimes it is hard or takes time to recognize that it is you in the picture out of all the other people. However, you will eventually recognize yourself because you have other criteria to judge that your face is your face.

Somewhat rough but a lot of measurements are actually going on in your brain whether you realize it or not. This is particularly fascinating to me.

You recognize someone's face because your brain can process your vision in which particular set of properties in the vision matches the "properties of a face" that you have and not that of the background. As such, you are incapable or will have difficultly in detecting camouflaged faces because it has the properties very similar to the environment and as such your brain processes the face as the environment.

This is a pure act of measurement. You are measuring face.

I apologize that I haven't read the entire thread thoroughly.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me the post where you explained why you think intelligence is not measurable. I probably missed a few posts or part of the post where you mentioned them, but all I could find is your assumption that they are not measurable, and not the justification of why it is so.

Psychological, yes. Scientific in general, to a degree, yes. I agree.

I respectfully disagree.

If you have a concept and can distinguish between an intelligent person or not, whether subjectively or objectively, you are qualitatively measuring intelligence. I can compare average Joe and Einstein and claim that Einstein is smarter, and Joe doesn't have to be severely unintelligent for me to say that. There is some concept within me and most likely most of the other people, that is capable of measuring intelligence. As such, intelligence is measurable, at least qualitatively.

IQ test is, to a certain degree, good measure of intelligence. Most people of Mensa International is indeed, both subjectively and likely objectively, smart. Also, IQ test is a statistical (relative) measurement, and not an absolute measurement.


Since you mentioned measuring physical concepts, I have to make sure you understand that any physically measurable phenomenon must first be defined prior to measurements. As a matter of fact, these definition could change (although it usually doesn't affect quantitatively because of the generality of physical axioms tend to be consistent or at least a good approximation of other physical axioms) depending on the axioms of the physical model it is based on. You mentioned mass and heat, but these first started as an intuition that things feel "heavy" when lifting heavy objects and that one feels "heat" when touching hot objects. The concept was always there but the problem was how to quantitatively measure them. Thus came the definition of mass and heat, which was based on intuition but is practical enough that people accept it.

For example, how would you define temperature? Definition of temperature is actually quite complicated than most people think, despite people generally accepting the concept and its measure. I have (physical) chemistry background, and thus have thermodynamic background when it comes to definition of temperature, but more fundamentally, it can come from statistical mechanics, which can also easily applied to quantum mechanics if the temperature is defined based on grand canonical ensemble. So the definition of temperature also changes depending on the particular physical model that it is based on.

Since the term "intelligent" is not universally well defined, their measurement is obviously not easy. IQ tests are one of these attempts to define "intelligent" so that measurement can be done.

As someone who is not American (I'm Japanese), I say Trump is somewhat unpredictable but is not necessarily the worst president as people make him to be.

I hate these radical leftists saying "Nazi" or "white supremacy" or "Ultranationalism" or some exaggerated propaganda whenever things happen against their desire.

I understand what you are trying to say, but the terminology is going everywhere.

"Ground state" refers to a state with the lowest energy of the particular system you are looking at. On the other hand, "speed of light" is simply speed. So a state and speed cannot be discussed at the same level. So from definition, it makes zero sense to say that "speed of light" is the "ground state" of the universe. But like I said, I know where you are getting to. I'm being a bit nitpickey because it matters in physics.

Also, speed of light does slow down in medium. What you said only applies to vacuum.

You are talking about special relativity. Special relativity stands on two principles: 1) principle of relativity and 2) principle of invariant speed of light. These two principles are rather assumptions made by Einstein but an intuitively valid ones based on how the world seems to work.

What you said about The speed of light is the same in all references comes from the principle of relativity. That is, the physical laws are same for all inertial frame of reference. What you talk about in the gravity is from general relativity.

So there is nothing new here. What is your point?




I'm sure that you already know and I am being nitpickey here, but speed of light is not constant. Speed of light slows in a medium.

Now I understand that you do not understand statistics. If you don't understand statistics, then you won't even know what IQ tests are about. Why are you arguing if you don't know IQ tests?

Okay, but I don't understand why you assume that intelligence CANNOT be measured. It certainly can.

If you are right, then the word "intelligent" would never have exited, much less used by anyone. It is because we have some (vague) concept of intelligence that we can use the word. I don't need to know the precise definition to say that Richard Feynman was intelligent. I don't need to know the precise definition to say that Albert Einstein was intelligent. But objectively speaking, both of these people are very intelligent academically. The fact that we are saying this already proves that we have some concept in our mind that is capable of testing people's intelligence. So intelligence can be tested qualitatively. The only question is how quantitatively. IQ tests are merely one of these approaches to quantitatively measure intelligence.

I will have to agree with this.

Statistically speaking, there is a difference between being "inaccurate" and having "deviations".

Let's hypothetically say that we have some ways to measure highly objective, critically accurate, perfect measurement of intelligence, and that we have the scores for 100 random people. And then, we measure the IQ of the same 100 people.
1) If the IQ scores are exactly the same as the perfect test, then the IQ test is both "accurate" AND "without deviation".
2) If the IQ scores are somewhat lower or higher than the perfect test depending on the person, but overall in average agrees with the perfect test, then the IQ test is "accurate" but have "some deviation".
3) If the IQ scores are always lower (or higher) than the perfect test, but the values itself are simply just shifted uniformly, then the IQ test is "inaccurate" but "without deviation".
4) If the IQ scores are always lower (or higher) than the perfect test, and the values vary greatly between individuals compared to the perfect test, then the IQ test is both "inaccurate" AND have "deviation".

I speculate that IQ test is "accurate" but have "notable deviation".

This means that although IQ test provide good measurement of intelligence, sometimes the values deviate for certain people, making it not always accurate when referring to individuals. Such deviation may come simply from lack of education, because IQ test usually require some level of fundamental knowledge. In a lot of cases, people can lack concentration, despite being very bright, and score lower for the latter stage of the test. Age also matter.

However, my speculation comes from the fact that IQ test and its scores are based on statistics and thus is a relative measure. The scores we get on IQ tests are merely standard deviation from the most population. As such, IQ tests should not be blindly trusted, but can be used as a reference.

I know IQ tests aren't some absolute measure of "intelligence", but I think it does a good job overall. I think people criticize the IQ tests more than necessary, based on intelligent people that it failed to recognize. For example, by bringing up people like Richard Feynman who is arguably one of the most intelligent people out there in history of science but scored rather average on IQ test, they think they completely proved the IQ to be illegitimate or something. Sure, IQ test is not flaw-free, but that does not mean it's worthless.

In principle, God, whether he actually exist or not, can never completely and accurately convey his will to the people. There's an obvious reason to that: because we are human, and human can misinterpret words. Even when scientists explain their own works in completely concise and accurate manner, not a lot of people would understand, much less a general audience.

The old testament itself is known to be written and refined by several people. Considering that translation itself is also extremely difficult to do accurately, it should be expected that something may have gone wrong in the process.

So let's hypothetically say God came to our world once again to clear up the confusion and misinterpretation. There are still going to be millions of people misinterpreting his words.

Spectral measurements indicate that amino acids and sugars indeed form in interstellar dust. They are all over the place, literally. I am by no means an expert, but that might suggest that simple organics didn't have to be seeded: if they form so readily everywhere, couldn't they have formed here on Earth? — SophistiCat

Good point, and maybe you are right. It might not be a meteorite that brought necessary things on Earth but it was on Earth in the first place. I am not an expert in astronomy neither so I don't know.

Scientists do attempt addressing that problem. They just haven't got a universally acceptable solution or alternative. So you are right, general relativity is, by no means, a complete, fully accurate description of physics.

Unlike special relativity, where theories like QFT have unified quantum mechanics and special relativity, general relativity lacks any good alternative or generalizing theories. In fact, even one of the most successful theories like Quantum Field Theory is still inadequate to completely explain several experimental data such as particle physics. This is due to the fundamental nature of QFT. So then, from the practical point of view, what are you insisting we do? Forget about scientific theories and be "philosophical", which in my opinion is even worse in this particular case? Or we just stop talking about it and be agnostic? Because one thing that would really bug me is that you mentioned in a thread "Does a 'God' exist", specifically this post, where you said:

According to your claim then, we cannot prove the existence of anything, and this is probably true, we take the existence of things for granted. But that's just extreme skepticism, to claim that we can't prove the existence of anything. — Metaphysician Undercover

I thought you were against extreme skepticism. You seem to be unable to accept general relativity because of certain area that it cannot account for despite the good description (or approximation) of reality that general relativity provides (and is actually used in engineering area, and it works well). This is likely the same for any other theory. Does that mean you disagree with every single theories out there?

So when something which is clearly contradictory in terms of description, (such as the expansion of space inside an object being different from the expansion of space outside an object), can only be accounted for with mathematics, I consider such an application of mathematics to be deception, used to hide a contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

This tells me that

I have a reasonable scientific background and you might be surprised at how well I understand this stuff — Metaphysician Undercover

is a lie.

I must say, nice job with a brief summary. But I don't think any of the people here really understand the mathematics and science behind this and no matter how many times you try to convince those that just emotionally reject the idea, they are not going to change their mind.
I don't completely understand it either because I am not an astronomer but a physical chemist.

Science is extremely sophisticated today because they are built upon very large, multi-discipline, intuitively hard to understand branches of science. All of these branches intertwine in so many different ways. It impossible for one to be able to understand all of this in a lifetime. General public usually never get the chance of understanding how much of the correct effort numerous scientists have put to get this far. And if they don't understand and wants to reject it, they suddenly think they are smarter than these large group of scientists, as seen numerous times on this forum. A very sad reality.

Lots and lots of people claim so and present what they consider to be evidence. But whether what they consider to be evidence is, indeed, evidence is a matter for inquiry -- it is not a given. Which is why part of the problem is an examination of what is evidence and what is not.

(Note that it is possible, and even very common, for evidence to be ambiguous, and also for it to support contradictory theories). — Mariner

You are right.

But for me, most of the "evidence" that they claim to be as one is expedient, otherwise downright wrong. One example is "probability". Probability is probably one of the common defense that I see people use to justify intelligent design (usually by a god) because the chance of the Earth happening is extremely slim. This is such a bad argument because 1) they seem not to understand what "probability" (precisely, what unit) they are talking about, and 2) they are lacking basic knowledge in statistics and is making a hilariously wrong interpretation of probability.
I am surprised especially when one of those person was studying statistics. So like you said, one can use it to support contradictory theories. Honestly, to me, what they do is more like a double standard.

That is of course, one example. I am definitely not going to go through tons of other examples because I don't have the willpower and time to do so.

Nope, the "concept of God" certainly developed later than the experience of gods -- and any experience of gods is (in the viewpoint of the subject) "observation of the actual object". — Mariner

This is begging the question. Your conclusion essentially implies that god(s) were actually experienced by people, which requires as a premise that god(s) actually do exist. This is circular reasoning.

An interpretation is an explanation or description of the meaning of something. How can that be the thing itself. To say what something means, is not the thing itself. An interpretation may be judged as an understanding or it may be judged as a misunderstanding, but this is irrelevant to the fact that an interpretation cannot be the thing itself which is being interpreted. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that my wording was not good. What I meant was the resulting object (X') derived from the interpretation of the evidence produced by supposedly existent actual object (X).
Maybe I should've said "interpreted God" or something.

Let's say that there is an existent thing referred to as X. If an interpretation of this thing contains contradictions, that does not mean that the thing does not exist, it means that there is a faulty interpretation, a misunderstanding. It is nonsense to assert that the faulty interpretation indicates that the thing does not exist. If I say that my shirt is blue, when it is really green, because I am colour blind, this does not mean that my shirt doesn't exist. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is pretty much rephrasing what I've said. I don't understand what you disagree.

I don't understand your point. All we have to go on, with respect to any existing things, is our interpretations of those things. According to your claim then, we cannot prove the existence of anything, and this is probably true, we take the existence of things for granted. But that's just extreme skepticism, to claim that we can't prove the existence of anything. — Metaphysician Undercover

Who said we can't prove the existence of anything?

For example, when we see Indica rice, we know that it is Indica rice. This is because we have defined Indica rice. People mistaking Indica rice as Japonica rice is because such people have no clue of the definition, and this is not the same as misinterpretation.

This is different from god(s). First of all, no one actually met a god (some claims so but without evidence). We don't even know if it exists. The concept came before observation of the actual object (unlike Indica rice). For this reason, the definition of god comes from the complete opposite approach than how we defined Indica rice. The definition of god is not definite at all because we have plenty of religion out there.

Scientifically, I agree with molecular-panspermia (Extraterrestrial organic molecules).

Indeed, statistically it is plausible that organic molecules can be formed from dusts (and later meteorites and comets) in space. These molecules may have become precursors for life after crashing on planets. Amino acids was also detected in one of the comets, if my memory serves me right.

It is important to note that amino acid in nature is L type (and not D). I think MChD (Magneto-Chiral Dichroism) can provide an answer for that.


*of course this is subject to change in light of new evidence.

I agree with this also. The question does seem to be about X itself instead of our interpretation of it. — GreyScorpio

Which is impossible because then you are implying that the premise X' = X. Any interpretation arising from God is X' in any religion and disproving this does not disprove X at all. Then either the OP question itself needs to be revised so that we can actually talk about X like you intended, or that we just talk about how X' is wrong.

This is complete nonsense. First, in number 2 you allow that an interpretation could be the thing itself, which is impossible. Then in number 3 you state that the interpretation, X', must be apprehensible with the senses, but this is nonsensical. How would you apprehend with the senses an interpretation? — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's make this clear.

First, an interpretation can be, by accident or not, the thing itself. If you deny this, then every single thing that every single person on this forum says, are misunderstanding. I hope that is not true.

If a god really do exist, then he can be deistic, materialistic, or omnipotent, and etc. We don't know that. Whatever it is, we just name it X. However, OP provides a type of God in certain religion (most likely Abrahamic God). We name this type of interpretation of God as X'. Then we comprehend the properties of X' and can draw out conclusion that there are flaws and contradiction in its properties. Thus, X' can be proven nonexistent. That is independent of whether X exist or not.

I am claiming that this thread fails to account for the "actual" God (X) as it only talks about "one interpretation" of God (X'). But the OP and several others are mixing X' and X up and trying to prove or disprove X by arguing existence or nonexistence of X'. This is a fallacy (as Mariner mentioned). I am wondering how they are going to talk about X with a OP like this.

But the real question is not about X' (our interpretation of X), but rather about X — Mariner

I don't agree on that. GreyScorpio is clearly referring to our (or actually a group of people in a specific religion) interpretation of God. Not the "actual" God that supposedly exists.

I understand that you want to talk about the "actual" God, but that is not the case here, so you are basically off-topic.

I must say 1) definitely have a fallacy in the question itself.

1. Let's say there is the true target of what we are trying to interpret as X.
2. Whatever we actually interpret about X is X', and not X itself. (X' can be X, but we don't know at this point.)
3. X' has been created with the same apprehensive ability we have. It follows that X' is able to apprehend by us with our senses.
4. If X' cannot be apprehend by our senses, then interpretation of X (= X') must be a mistake.
5. Therefore X' does not exist. (This does not mean X does not exist.)

In the OP, GreyScorpio is clearly referring to X' (our interpretation of God).

The OP does not understand what "probability" is and how it works (as other people have mentioned)...this thread is already null before we can actually get into whether God exist or not.

This is a very bad logic.

I don't know how you define "miracles" but it seems to me that there can be a better explanation to it than explaining it as an act of some divine being that you don't even know if it really exists. For example, the two examples of "miracle" you mentioned can simply be a hallucination.

How many people out there had a fatal snake bite and died, against people that survived? This is a probabilistic thing. Statistically, some do survive. This is a fact. We can't call these miracles. Combined with hallucinations, this can be well explained. I know that was just an example, but most of the "miracles" out there are simply a statistically or probabilistically possible result.

Does the Universe and the physical laws of physics happen because of math of QM or does the mathematics of QM just describe the behavior? — Mike

The latter.

What is the cause of things like particle interactions and things like gravity and magnetism?

I don't know how far into the "cause" you are talking about, but I'll tell you from the point of Quantum Field Theory.

From the quantum chromodynamics' point of view, protons and neutrons are held together by "residual strong force". Proton and neutron exchange pions that keeps these two together. If you look even closer into it, gluons keep quarks together but also helps produce pions. You can consider this as particle interactions. So gluons are one of the many "force carriers".

Force carrier of magnetism is photons.

Theoretically, force carrier of gravity is gravitons. However, the existence of graviton has not been confirmed. It is a hypothetical particle.

I am trying to understand what the interpretation for this question is. I hear some people say that math determines the behavior of the physical universe while others say that math just describes the behavior. Has this question been settled?

Depends on the interpretation, but it is generally believed that math just describes the behavior. In light of new, better, and more compatible theory, the interpretation is subject to change. This is a philosophical aspect of physics, not science. I wouldn't go too much into it. I always keep an agnostic view of it. It's not that important either for science.

Space is infinitely divisible in mathematics under the definition of continuous space. Unfortunately, we do not really know whether this is applicable to our world. However, scientifically, it works better if it is.

We don't know if reality is wrong, but before we can actually argue about that, we should be concerned about the logical fallacy made by Zeno.


The fact that "one must first travel half way before getting to point A", and that this applies infinitely, is true. That is, however, irrelevant to whether one can move or not. This is because the argument that one must first travel half way is simply a requirement. It has nothing to do with whether one can actually travel that distance or not.