The New ATHEISM. and the Latter Day Saints.

[Physics Guy]

Additional forces significant enough to affect people’s lives, even subtle forces, are indeed hard to believe now. But I don’t think that’s what most people would specifically mean by karma, Providence, or answers to prayer.

I think what most people mean by those things would include meaningful coincidences in whatever happens. Such apparent coincidences could perfectly well occur just through coincidences—or deliberate choices by some creator—in the initial conditions of reality.

I don’t see how these have been ruled out at all.

In fact it is a more firmly established principle in physics than any particular field theory, that natural laws are differential equations. This literally means that the laws of nature alone do not determine what happens. Additional input is needed, typically in the form of initial conditions.

For the right initial conditions, wild statistical miracles could occur at any time in the history of the universe, anywhere, with no warning and little subsequent trace. Indeed such wild flukes are bound to occur many times in a big and old universe.

Whatever it is that chose the initial conditions may not be anything we’d want to call God or karma or whatever. But it could be. And whatever it is, we are in its hands still, through the choices it made.

[huckelberry]

Analytics, you are the first person I have heard claim that particle physics shows there is no fate, Karma, or providence. Perhaps you could mention what line of logic is being considered. I am aware of a study where some ill people were divided between those prayed for and those not and found no statistical difference in their recovery. I guess God is happy to cure some people not prayed for. Why not? Or God often does not make special cures. Or God does not like being put to the test so did not play along. Or there is no God related to prayers. These each would be logically possible.

Pinker's position here was best articulated by Sean Carroll in his book The Big Picture. You have to read several chapters in that book regarding quantum field theory, effective field theory, and the core theory to fully understand the implications. Basically, the point is that quantum field theory is spectacularly successful at explaining reality within a well-defined domain of applicability. According to that theory, if there were some mysterious force that could impact our lives, even subtly, we know exactly how to detect such forces through something called "crossing symmetry." Using particle accelerators, scientists have done all of the possible experiments that could reveal such unknown forces. The results of those experiments are unambiguous: There is nothing there.

These implications of effective field theory is what Pinker was referring to. If you want to understand it, you should read Sean Carroll's book.

My understanding of the physics is partial but I have no reason to doubt the observation about how things work. I just do not see any connection to the question of providence or miracles.Mysterious forces? I do not know what that is that supposed to refer to ?

[huckelberry]

Additional forces significant enough to affect people’s lives, even subtle forces, are indeed hard to believe now. But I don’t think that’s what most people would specifically mean by karma, Providence, or answers to prayer.

I think what most people mean by those things would include meaningful coincidences in whatever happens. Such apparent coincidences could perfectly well occur just through coincidences—or deliberate choices by some creator—in the initial conditions of reality.

I don’t see how these have been ruled out at all.

In fact it is a more firmly established principle in physics than any particular field theory, that natural laws are differential equations. This literally means that the laws of nature alone do not determine what happens. Additional input is needed, typically in the form of initial conditions.

For the right initial conditions, wild statistical miracles could occur at any time in the history of the universe, anywhere, with no warning and little subsequent trace. Indeed such wild flukes are bound to occur many times in a big and old universe.

Whatever it is that chose the initial conditions may not be anything we’d want to call God or karma or whatever. But it could be. And whatever it is, we are in its hands still, through the choices it made.

Physics Guy, You may be referring to the idea that God foresaw events and preplanned them to fit special providential turn of events. I am curious as to how you see another rather traditional view of miracles. God created the whole system and how it works is a result of his power. It is designed to function without and need for special forces to prop it up. Still if God is the power behind all that it would seem probable that God has the power to interfere with the chain of events any time. It is pretty clear from observation that that is not happening with noticeable frequency.

I remember an observation that miracles are impossible to prove or disprove because they are over with after the moment. There is no way to go back and test the moment to see exactly what happened.

[Physics Guy]

About what seems to be Carroll's terminology: I find it weird to hear "quantum field theory", "effective field theory", and "core theory" used as though they were things in the same category.

"Quantum field theory" in the singular but without any "a" or "the" article is the standard name for a huge subject that physicists study in grad school. It's the quantum theory of fields in general, and it's also the general theory of quantum fields. It's a general mathematical subject, like geometry or calculus, that covers all possible particular quantum field theories, including theories of fields that are purely hypothetical, or even that are deliberate fictions considered only for educational purposes. Quantum electrodynamics, for example, is one particular quantum field theory; it's an important one because it describes most of reality, so any course on quantum field theory in general has to mention it, but it's also somewhat complicated, so courses usually start with simpler quantum field theories that don't describe anything real.

I've never heard anyone speak of "effective field theory" in the same way, as a general subject. Instead one speaks of effective field theories, or of an effective field theory. An effective field theory is a field theory that is in a certain sense an approximation to another field theory. This particular kind of approximation is important both because it's a practically convenient kind of approximation and because it implies that even if our best current field theory isn't actually right, it is probably an effective field theory that approximates the true theory well, and in that sense it is close to right after all.

I've never heard anyone speak of "core theory" at all, except people who are referring to Carroll's book. So maybe it's a buzzword that the particle physics community has adopted in the past couple of decades, or maybe it's just Carroll's own term. Even if it's a buzzword in particle physics these days, it's one at which most physicists would roll their eyes. So it's not an expression in the same class as either "quantum field theory" or "effective field theory". It's still not a crazy term, though. For fifty years or so there has been one particular combined theory that is still our current best guess at the total truth: the quantum field theory of the Standard Model of particle physics plus General Relativity for gravity, and maybe some unproven propositions about ergodic theory that should rope in thermodynamics. It wouldn't be silly to invent a name for physics's current best shot, and "the core theory" is probably decent enough as a name, if somewhat pretentious.

[Physics Guy]

I am curious as to how you see another rather traditional view of miracles. God created the whole system and how it works is a result of his power. It is designed to function without and need for special forces to prop it up. Still if God is the power behind all that it would seem probable that God has the power to interfere with the chain of events any time. It is pretty clear from observation that that is not happening with noticeable frequency.

I remember an observation that miracles are impossible to prove or disprove because they are over with after the moment. There is no way to go back and test the moment to see exactly what happened.

Good point: this is something that a creator God could presumably do. They're God's laws, so God can just tell them to stop for a moment. I would imagine that God would take a universe that evolves from one set of initial conditions, and another universe that evolves from a different set of initial conditions, and simply splice them together by saying that the actual universe is Universe A up to a certain time, but Universe B after that. As long as the initial conditions aren't too different, it might be hard for anyone inside the universe to notice the discontinuity.

Another idea would be to think of God's existence outside of time as less like perfect foreknowledge and more like time travelling. Somebody prays for something today, and God reacts now. God figures out now what kind of change in the initial conditions it would have taken, back at the beginning of time, to leave everything almost exactly the same up until now, but then grant this person's prayer in the next hour. God then zips back to the beginning of time and rejiggers the initial conditions in just that way, thus changing the past, but only in undetectably tiny ways, and granting the prayer.

I personally prefer the idea that God just figured out the perfect story from an outline and wrote it in one draft. The God who could do that seems to me like a greater God. I don't see that we have any way of testing any theories of this kind. So I don't think that any of these models of miracle or karma or providence or prayer have been ruled out by science.

This is a kind of God of the gaps, but the gap of initial conditions is not just any old gap. It's a basic gap that is inherent in the fundamental concept that natural laws are differential equations. That is the Newtonian idea that started science. To hope that this gap will one day be filled in with scientific knowledge is not to hope that science will continue to progress as it has heretofore. It's to hope that science itself will be replaced with something different that has never existed. It could happen, but scientific progress so far gives us no reason to hope for it.

[Analytics]

Additional forces significant enough to affect people’s lives, even subtle forces, are indeed hard to believe now. But I don’t think that’s what most people would specifically mean by karma, Providence, or answers to prayer.

I think what most people mean by those things would include meaningful coincidences in whatever happens. Such apparent coincidences could perfectly well occur just through coincidences—or deliberate choices by some creator—in the initial conditions of reality.

I don’t see how these have been ruled out at all.

In fact it is a more firmly established principle in physics than any particular field theory, that natural laws are differential equations. This literally means that the laws of nature alone do not determine what happens. Additional input is needed, typically in the form of initial conditions....

I’ve read enough Pinker to be confident I understand his point. He isn’t claiming that there aren’t bonafide coincidences, and he isn’t claiming that people don’t find meaning of them when they happen. He’s claiming that there isn’t a ghost in the machine made out of “spirit matter,” as Amy Williams believes. And he’s claiming that God doesn’t communicate with us through real yet undiscovered spiritual forces as Amy Williams believes.

Regarding initial conditions, are you sure? Could an omniscient God fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe so that 14 billion years later, trillions of trillions of anomalies would take place in a coordinated way so that Jesus could walk on water without actually breaking the laws of physics? As I see it, the quanta in quantum mechanics, combined with chaos theory, precludes such a thing from being possible, even in principle.

[Res Ipsa]

I am curious as to how you see another rather traditional view of miracles. God created the whole system and how it works is a result of his power. It is designed to function without and need for special forces to prop it up. Still if God is the power behind all that it would seem probable that God has the power to interfere with the chain of events any time. It is pretty clear from observation that that is not happening with noticeable frequency.

I remember an observation that miracles are impossible to prove or disprove because they are over with after the moment. There is no way to go back and test the moment to see exactly what happened.

Good point: this is something that a creator God could presumably do. They're God's laws, so God can just tell them to stop for a moment. I would imagine that God would take a universe that evolves from one set of initial conditions, and another universe that evolves from a different set of initial conditions, and simply splice them together by saying that the actual universe is Universe A up to a certain time, but Universe B after that. As long as the initial conditions aren't too different, it might be hard for anyone inside the universe to notice the discontinuity.

Another idea would be to think of God's existence outside of time as less like perfect foreknowledge and more like time travelling. Somebody prays for something today, and God reacts now. God figures out now what kind of change in the initial conditions it would have taken, back at the beginning of time, to leave everything almost exactly the same up until now, but then grant this person's prayer in the next hour. God then zips back to the beginning of time and rejiggers the initial conditions in just that way, thus changing the past, but only in undetectably tiny ways, and granting the prayer.

I personally prefer the idea that God just figured out the perfect story from an outline and wrote it in one draft. The God who could do that seems to me like a greater God. I don't see that we have any way of testing any theories of this kind. So I don't think that any of these models of miracle or karma or providence or prayer have been ruled out by science.

This is a kind of God of the gaps, but the gap of initial conditions is not just any old gap. It's a basic gap that is inherent in the fundamental concept that natural laws are differential equations. That is the Newtonian idea that started science. To hope that this gap will one day be filled in with scientific knowledge is not to hope that science will continue to progress as it has heretofore. It's to hope that science itself will be replaced with something different that has never existed. It could happen, but scientific progress so far gives us no reason to hope for it.

Is the law that God cannot do something that is a logical contradiction one of God's laws?

[Analytics]

Pinker's position here was best articulated by Sean Carroll in his book The Big Picture. You have to read several chapters in that book regarding quantum field theory, effective field theory, and the core theory to fully understand the implications. Basically, the point is that quantum field theory is spectacularly successful at explaining reality within a well-defined domain of applicability. According to that theory, if there were some mysterious force that could impact our lives, even subtly, we know exactly how to detect such forces through something called "crossing symmetry." Using particle accelerators, scientists have done all of the possible experiments that could reveal such unknown forces. The results of those experiments are unambiguous: There is nothing there.

These implications of effective field theory is what Pinker was referring to. If you want to understand it, you should read Sean Carroll's book.

My understanding of the physics is partial but I have no reason to doubt the observation about how things work. I just do not see any connection to the question of providence or miracles.Mysterious forces? I do not know what that is that supposed to refer to ?

The point is that as much as scientists have proven anything, scientists have conclusively proven that “mystery forces” with the properties needed to have any effect on our every day world can’t exist. It isn’t just that we haven’t found them. It’s that they can’t exist because if they did exist, they would have materialized in specific experiments that have been done in particle accelerators.

These conclusions are robust, but they aren’t widely understood and aren’t intuitive. Ultimately it’s possible that spirits exist, but that is like saying it is possible the moon is made out of cheese. If you (or Amy Williams) wants to understand these topics, you really ought to read Big Picture.

[Analytics]

About what seems to be Carroll's terminology: I find it weird to hear "quantum field theory", "effective field theory", and "core theory" used as though they were things in the same category.

"Quantum field theory" in the singular but without any "a" or "the" article is the standard name for a huge subject that physicists study in grad school. It's the quantum theory of fields in general, and it's also the general theory of quantum fields. It's a general mathematical subject, like geometry or calculus, that covers all possible particular quantum field theories, including theories of fields that are purely hypothetical, or even that are deliberate fictions considered only for educational purposes. Quantum electrodynamics, for example, is one particular quantum field theory; it's an important one because it describes most of reality, so any course on quantum field theory in general has to mention it, but it's also somewhat complicated, so courses usually start with simpler quantum field theories that don't describe anything real.

I've never heard anyone speak of "effective field theory" in the same way, as a general subject. Instead one speaks of effective field theories, or of an effective field theory. An effective field theory is a field theory that is in a certain sense an approximation to another field theory. This particular kind of approximation is important both because it's a practically convenient kind of approximation and because it implies that even if our best current field theory isn't actually right, it is probably an effective field theory that approximates the true theory well, and in that sense it is close to right after all.

I've never heard anyone speak of "core theory" at all, except people who are referring to Carroll's book. So maybe it's a buzzword that the particle physics community has adopted in the past couple of decades, or maybe it's just Carroll's own term. Even if it's a buzzword in particle physics these days, it's one at which most physicists would roll their eyes. So it's not an expression in the same class as either "quantum field theory" or "effective field theory". It's still not a crazy term, though. For fifty years or so there has been one particular combined theory that is still our current best guess at the total truth: the quantum field theory of the Standard Model of particle physics plus General Relativity for gravity, and maybe some unproven propositions about ergodic theory that should rope in thermodynamics. It wouldn't be silly to invent a name for physics's current best shot, and "the core theory" is probably decent enough as a name, if somewhat pretentious.

From my perspective, “effective field theory” is just Carroll’s way of explaining to a lay audience that his propositions will always hold true because even if there proved to be something more basic and quirky and fundamental that was driving quantum field theory, it would remain true that the physics underlying everyday reality are completely known.

I agree that “core theory” is Carroll’s somewhat arrogant attempt at inventing a term. But in the book it is well defined.

[Physics Guy]

Providence and karma aren’t usually associated with outright miracles, but just with less likely normal events happening at convenient times. But even something like walking on water is probably technically possible.

Just specify how you want the molecules to be lined up at the start of the walking, so as to keep hitting up on the feet. Then run determinism backwards to see what initial state leads to that situation. An initial state that leads to that amazing string of lucky molecule strikes has to exist, because time evolution is a one-to-one mapping.

Chaos is still deterministic, and so in its own way is quantum mechanics.