Cosmologic philosophy: multiverse/string theory (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, January 01, 2015, 14:35 (3614 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DAVID: I'll be careful with my six-shooter. GK, Tony and I all agree that theories presented by elegant math, from mathematicians' imaginations are just that, fancy imagined dreams. You are correct that God is not falsifiable, but He still remains the best answer to the question of why is there anything? You may stay on your pickets.-I am not defending these elegant maths theories, which may indeed be fancy imagined dreams, but the mathematicians consider them to be the best answer to unanswerable questions. You dismiss them as horse feathers and unbelievable garbage because they are not falsifiable or subject to experimentation, and offer no proof. The God theory is not falsifiable or subject to experimentation, and offers no proof. Remember Hopalong Cassidy? Ah guess ya wasn't careful enurf with that thar six-shooter.
 
TONY: Except that I have argued a means to falsify God. You disagreed. -The means you proposed was that a false prophecy in the bible would falsify God. I argued that it would falsify the proposal that the bible was the word of God. You kindly produced a quotation from the bible which proved my point, and then you agreed with me, as follows:
 
Deut 18:22 21"You may say in your heart, 'How will we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?' 22"When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him." -TONY: If a book of the Bible failed in a prophecy, it would certainly falsify the bible as the word of god.-You then went on to insist that the bible WAS the word of God, but that makes no difference to the above argument.
 
TONY: You also disagree that indirect observation qualifies as evidence, apparently. So how do you believe in anything else that can not be directly observed, such as NDE's, cellular intelligence, gravity, etc?-I'm not sure what you mean by indirect observation. The vast majority of our knowledge comes from things we have learned as opposed to observed directly. If there is a universal consensus that there is a place called Australia, that the Earth goes round the sun, that once upon a time there were dinosaurs but no human beings on our planet, I accept it, and will continue to do so until there is evidence to the contrary. I don't “believe” in NDE's or cellular intelligence - I have an open mind on both, but offer them as possible evidence for different hypotheses which I continue to consider. I haven't thought a great deal about gravity, but since there seems to be scientific consensus that it causes apples to fall downwards, I see no reason to argue (as with my other examples). Evolution is a controversial theory, but with the important proviso that it does NOT exclude God, I find the evidence sufficiently convincing to believe in some aspects of it (common descent and natural selection) but not in others (random mutations and gradualism). There is absolutely no consensus on the existence of God, and I do not find the “evidence” convincing on either side. I am therefore not able to take a decision.