How can a single subatomic particle exist without God?

[Mind Over Matter]

Any thoughts?

 

[wynn]

Nobody can prove God. So stop with that.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

Nobody can prove God. So stop with that.

explain to me how a subatomic particle can exist

 

[wynn]

explain to me how a subatomic particle can exist

Then you explain to me first how come you make such a request in the first place.

 

[Rav]

explain to me how a subatomic particle can exist

It's easy. Imagine that the universe (including this little subatomic particle of yours) is a product of some sort of fundamental quantum mechanical vacuum state. Or whatever you like really. The bottom line is that if something can necessarily exist then something can necessarily exist.

 

[James R]

Mind Over Matter:

Why don't you tell us all why you think particles need God to exist? Since it's you who wants to introduce an additional element to existence, it seems to me that the onus is on you to show that it is necessary.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

Mind Over Matter:

Why don't you tell us all why you think particles need God to exist? Since it's you who wants to introduce an additional element to existence, it seems to me that the onus is on you to show that it is necessary.

"Subatomic particles" are what? Dimensionless points? That have their own properties of creational ability, causal ability, and 'thinking' ability? Do "subatomic particles" have the ability to create algorithms? Like some super-intelligent Borg that existed before intelligent life? The ability to provide impetus for complex and intelligent life? Oh, and all of this by chance? (Or, perhaps I should say, by design?) By "mutation?" An infinity of mutations times an infinity of complexification?

I think my explanation is much simpler and much more elegant.

 

[James R]

Mind Over Matter:

"Subatomic particles" are what? Dimensionless points?

We don't know yet, because we can't do any experiment that distinguishes dimensional points from things such as superstrings.

That have their own properties of creational ability, causal ability, and 'thinking' ability?

Subatomic particles don't think - at least not unless there are many of them arranged just so. As for the other abilities, I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly one particle can set off a chain of causation. And certainly one particle can cause the creation of other particles.

Do "subatomic particles" have the ability to create algorithms?

In large numbers, yes. For example, I am one such collection of subatomic particles.

The ability to provide impetus for complex and intelligent life? Oh, and all of this by chance? (Or, perhaps I should say, by design?) By "mutation?" An infinity of mutations times an infinity of complexification?

Subatomic particles don't live in an orderless, random universe. They are subject to the laws of physics. The particles, bound by those laws, have certainly given rise to complex, intelligent life. Again, I am a living example.

I think my explanation is much simpler and much more elegant.

You think introducing a massively more complex entity - God - is somehow more elegant than building things bottom-up according to some simple laws of physics?

You want to explain complexity by introducing something even more complex?

 

[wynn]

You want to explain complexity by introducing something even more complex?

As per that famous quote attributed to Einstein:
Problems cannot be solved on the same level of consciousness they were created on; but on a higher one.

 

[Rav]

As per that famous quote attributed to Einstein:
Problems cannot be solved on the same level of consciousness they were created on; but on a higher one.

From Wikiquote:

• "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels."
  • From "Atomic Education Urged by Einstein", New York Times (25 May 1946), and later quoted in the article "The Real Problem is in the Hearts of Man" by Michael Amrine, from the New York Times Magazine (23 June 1946). A slightly modified version of the 23 June article was reprinted in Einstein on Peace by Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden (1960), and it was also reprinted in Einstein on Politics by David E. Rowe and Robert Schulmann (2007), p. 383.
    
  • In The New Quotable Einstein (2005), editor Alice Calaprice suggests that two quotes attributed to Einstein which she could not find sources for, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them" and "The world we have created today as a result of our thinking thus far has problems which cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them," may both be paraphrases of the 1946 quote above. A similar unsourced variant is "The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking."
    
  • In the 23 June article Einstein expanded somewhat on the original quote from the 25 May article:
    
    
    Many persons have inquired concerning a recent message of mine that "a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels." Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we knew it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking. In the light of new knowledge, a world authority and an eventual world state are not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, they are necessary for survival. In previous ages a nation's life and culture could be protected to some extent by the growth of armies in national competition. Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars.​

It appears that this quote of yours is also a liberal paraphrasing of the one above. Context is everything.

 

[wynn]

Once, I saw it attributed to Jung.

 

[C C]

Any thoughts?

This is coming from some kind of George Berkeley angle, possibly?

Their existing - as in not dependent upon being experienced or exhibited as any kind of phenomenon to the entity itself or to a conscious observer outside it (even as a track on a detection instrument or an abstract description) would just be the power to affect and be affected by other particles or agencies in physics. Potency is at least still left when the empirical content of perception, reflective thought and symbolic frameworks for understanding something, have been removed for representing such influence. Particles that rarely interact, for instance, would not be part of the natural order if they never responded to the presence of anything else at all and vice versa, or were at least susceptible to gravity. They'd never be known about in the first place or verified if they were total ghost particles that defied detection.

Unlike bosons, particles belonging to the fermion category can't occupy the same quantum space, so that would be an additional reason for some of their responsive behaviors. Also, even a supposedly fundamental particle like an electron can actually be split into a spinon and orbiton (recently accomplished), which would just be separated instantiations of an electron's properties (spin and orbital). So even when a particle isn't affecting or being affected by something else in its environment, there are properties constituting it that could be said to be abiding or influencing each other internally (bare existence as potency again).

 

[Cavalier]

Any thoughts?

How can God exist without an ubergod who created Him?

Any thoughts?

By your own logic, obviously there must be an ubergod, because that explanation so neatly answers my question. And if you answer is "God always existed and doesn't need a creator," then why wouldn't a similar answer suffice for subatomic particles?

The truth is "God did it" is only a simpler answer if you believe that "God" is a simple being, whose existence, designs and mysteries are easily understood and explained. If you don't think that, then "God did it," is a short sentence that hides vastly complex philosophical and practical issues, far more than the materialist view if a vacuum fluctuation that brings spacetime and energy into being (and it's the natural result of the existence of spacetime and energy that leads to the formation of all the subatomic particles as we know them).

 

[kx000]

How can God exist without an ubergod who created Him?

Any thoughts?

By your own logic, obviously there must be an ubergod, because that explanation so neatly answers my question. And if you answer is "God always existed and doesn't need a creator," then why wouldn't a similar answer suffice for subatomic particles?

The truth is "God did it" is only a simpler answer if you believe that "God" is a simple being, whose existence, designs and mysteries are easily understood and explained. If you don't think that, then "God did it," is a short sentence that hides vastly complex philosophical and practical issues, far more than the materialist view if a vacuum fluctuation that brings spacetime and energy into being (and it's the natural result of the existence of spacetime and energy that leads to the formation of all the subatomic particles as we know them).

Ok... then Jesus is God, and God is UBERGOD.

 

[Balerion]

Ok... then Jesus is God, and God is UBERGOD.

But then you need an Uber-Ubergod.

 

[kx000]

But then you need an Uber-Ubergod.

Why?

 

[Nasor]

I think my explanation is much simpler and much more elegant.

So your explanation is "because of magic"? Yeah, that's real helpful...

 

[spidergoat]

"Subatomic particles" are what? Dimensionless points? That have their own properties of creational ability, causal ability, and 'thinking' ability? Do "subatomic particles" have the ability to create algorithms? Like some super-intelligent Borg that existed before intelligent life? The ability to provide impetus for complex and intelligent life? Oh, and all of this by chance? (Or, perhaps I should say, by design?) By "mutation?" An infinity of mutations times an infinity of complexification?

I think my explanation is much simpler and much more elegant.

It only appears simpler, in fact you are placing all the complexity in a mind without explaining how that mind could exist with no foundation or source.

 

[Nasor]

It only appears simpler, in fact you are placing all the complexity in a mind without explaining how that mind could exist with no foundation or source.

He's also implicitly assuming that things like "causal ability" are real things that actually exist whose origin must be explained, rather than just abstract philosophical concepts that exist only in the minds of philosophers.

 

[Balerion]

Why?

For the same reason you need a god, or an Ubergod. If every particle needs a creator, and a creator needs a creator of its own in turn, then there's no end to how many creators are needed. Point is, you can't argue that the subatomic particle needs a god and then say a god doesn't need a god,