Back
Forum Replies Created
-
As always with scientific discovery, the danger lies not in its use to improve people´s lives, but in its possible ABUSE by unscrupulous scientists working for even more unscrupulous governments who only have their own interests in mind.
This being said, as with all the other discoveries, there is no stopping progress, and eventually the CRISPR technology will also be used for both good and evil. This, to me, is an unsettling thought. This seems more like a mind game. I´m uncomfortable about this as it reminds me of how religious people defend the idea of a god. You cannot prove it but you cannot disprove it either. So then anything goes. On the other hand, the theory seems to ´fit´ in nicely with some proven evidence. I agree with Professor Linde that it is easy to criticize without coming up with a better proposition.
This would take us back to the anthropic principle. Obviously, the universe´s conditions are hospitable to us, or we would not be here to observe this (our) universe. So there is no lucky accident, but inversely, the laws were not ´made´ to make our existence possible. As Klaus Cormann says, ´other universes might have intelligent life dealing with exactly the same questions, yet under totally different circumstances/ laws/ constants ´. If these manifestations of life reasoned the same way like us, that would make another lucky accident (and so on ad infinitum).
It´s like when you look at evolution: Nature did not set out to make us. We are just one variant whose development was possible under the evolutionary constraints.
Most importantly: No reason at all to talk about divine providence. I agree with Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris on all points here. It sounds to me like a ´Cogito ergo sum´ theory. I think, therefore I am, or – differently put – I observe this type of universe, therefore its laws must be hospitable to our kind of intelligent life. If it were inhospitable to life as we know it, we would not be here to observe it. It may be circular, but no more circular than Descartes.
Since we cannot prove or disprove any of these theories, we are in the land of Utopia where anything might be possible, like parallel universes in which different outcomes are played out (butterfly effect etc.). While it may seem tempting to play around with these ideas, I´d prefer some hard evidence to prove or disprove these theories. Given the enormous progress science is making I´m hopeful (if not confident).
To me, the most striking piece of evidence is the fact of lensing.
However, unless I completely misunderstood the explanation, in the summary of the video it says `This lensing would not be possible if galaxies did contain large quantities of dark matter whose enormous mass acts as a gravitational lens on passing light.´ Shouldn´t it say íf galaxies did NOT contain large quantities of dark matter´?
I´d be grateful if somebody could enlighten me on this. There is NO center, and CBR looks the same from any viewpoint in the universe, though this is not intuitive. Even though I like the explanation of the rising muffin with the chocolate chips (or raisins for Brian Greene), this metaphor would imply that there is a center of the muffin with maybe a raisin sitting in the center. This is where the metaphor fails, and to my mind we will never find a better one as the concept of ´no edge´ is simply – at least for me – not imaginable. For me, there is always the lurking question: OK, no edge, but then what is beyond (the edge)?
Hi John, I don´t think that this kind of experiment will really prove that there is such a thing as free will. It´s just making choices, but who says that I will follow up on my choice? (I am convinced that there is free will, but I don´t really see how to test this in the lab.)
I like the design of your experiment, but it sounds more like you were testing people´s ethical standards. In general, the alarmist claims seem to me to belong in the realm of the yellow press. I also find that a study that claims to be able to predict behavior and does so in little more than 50% of cases is not worth the paper it is written on. Studies should be carefully designed so as to show tangible results. I also have my doubts about a study that aims to (dis)prove the existence of free will by asking people to flick their wrist. Surely decisions based on free will are a little more complicated than that.