Book Review: "The First Scientific Proof of God:"

If you think that's bad, don't ever read Velikovsky's "Chariots of the Gods" or "Worlds in Confusion--er, Collision" because your head will explode.

Someone should ask George how that moral American mindset brought us Timothy McVeigh, Jeff Dahmer, and Eric Rudolph.

This is just the ramblings of a mentally ill person. Sometimes amusing, sometimes ugly. Don't bait him. He might have a gun.

See, he's right: language is a poor vehicle for ideas. At least, his language is.

I really enjoyed your review. It is a shame that you are, essentially, preaching to the choir here because the kinds of people who believe George and people like George are almost universally opposed to having an open enough mind to even consider your review as anything but an outright attack on their sacred world-view.

Your final judgement of him appears to be right on in light of his comments on the VT killings. IMO, he sounds just about as crazy as that gunman was.

By comparison, I found the testament of the mad Arab easy to read. No, wait, I didn't read that. The Necronomicon doesn't exist! BWAHHAAAAA!

Nicholas of Cusa was an extremely interesting man. It is not useful to accept the summary: "a medieval mystic." The MacTutor (University of St. Andrew) biography described Nicholas of Cusa [1401-1464] as: "a German philosopher and bishop. He was interested in geometry and logic as well as in philosophy and astronomy."

Their full biographical article by J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson adds: "He was interested in geometry and logic. He contributed to the study of infinity, studying the infinitely large and the infinitely small. He looked at the circle as the limit of regular polygons and used it in his religious teaching to show how one can approach truth but never reach it completely.... His interest in astronomy certainly led him to certain theories which were true and others which may still prove to be true. For example he claimed that the Earth moved round the Sun. He also claimed that the stars were other suns and that space was infinite. He also believed that the stars had other worlds orbiting them which were inhabited.... Cusa published improvements to the Alfonsine Tables which gave a practical method to find the position of the Sun, Moon and planets using Ptolemy's model. These tables had originally been compiled in 1272 with the support of King Alfonso X of Castile."

One also has the intriguing quotation attributed to Giordano Bruno: "If [Nicholas of Cusa] had not been hindered by his priest's vestment, he would have even been greater than Pythagoras!"

I have not read George Shollenberger's book, but a sympathetic reviewer might try to put some parts of it in the context of the historical Nicholas of Cusa. An Alternate History story or novel might imagine a world where Giordano Bruno was NOT executed by the Inquisition, and went on to be as influential as Galileo, making Newton role rather different. Newton might have lost his royal patronage and been executed for heresy, and then, well, then the story would begin...

I do not want to address the racism. William Shockley did great research, enough to share in two Nobel prizes, before he turned into a racist fool. I believe that there is good in every human being, and at least scraps of good in every book. It is hard to judge medieval theory in a modern mathematical and scientific way, given that the linbes between science, theology, philosophy, and the occult had not then been drawn where now we draw them.

I'm having trouble seeing a lot of difference between you and Shollenberger. Perhaps if you would answer any of the questions I posed previously, that would help.

Whenever you get around to it. What with the commute and the new job and all.

I'm patient.

The symbol stuff is based on the idea that language is a poor carrier of ideas. Language distorts ideas: the basic structure of a language affects the way that it communicates ideas.

Judging from the excerpts, I guess maybe that's true of his language...

Mr. Shollenberger reminds me a little of Humpty-Dumpty from Alice Through the Looking Glass. I wonder if he pays his words extra, too?

....The flamer responded by explaining that "writing for the public is like getting up and giving a speech in front of an audience. Writing with no care for spelling, grammar, or punctuation is like getting up and giving that speech while wearing a soiled shirt"....

Whoever the responder was, that is a good analogy. Could be added to the framing discussions as it would also apply to using curses/swearing in presentations.

Perhaps you could post your review on amazon? I know that I will not be buying the book (well I already knew that :o)), you could prevent others wasting their money.

I say that such a review would be "helpful to me".

Oh my God... from the Amazon page:

Better Together

Buy this book with The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins today!

- The First Scientific Proof of God: Reveals God's Intelligent Design and a Modern Creation Theory

- The God Delusion

Buy Together Today: $44.15

By the way, one other thing:

the other is a rehash of the classical ontological argument for the existence of a god

Don't you mean the cosmological argument? Or is there really a difference?

Monado writes:

If you think that's bad, don't ever read Velikovsky's "Chariots of the Gods" or "Worlds in Confusion--er, Collision" because your head will explode.

Chariots of the Gods? was written by Erich von Däniken, a hacktastic writer if ever there was one. His thesis was basically that ancient peoples were too stupid or incompetant or unimaginative to make some of the the artifacts that existed at the time, so aliens must have helped. Some of his evidence was fraudulent, but mainly his claims rested on fallacious and specious argument.

Yikes. After seeing some of Georgie-Boy's comments and reading your review, I can only imagine the agony you're in. Where should I send the sympathy card?

As my ex-gf used to say, "don't torment the afflicted." Neither of you are enjoying this. Seriously, Mark, let it go already. He's had a stroke, for Pete's sake. Save it for Egnor - at least that guy passes the Turing test.

I'd like to put him and the Time Cube guy in a room together and see what happens.

Also, just how much alcohol did it take for you to manage to get through the entire book?

DaveM:

I've got no intention of ever writing about George again. But I'd promised to write a review of the book if anyone sent me a copy.

And I did do the best I could to write a fair, objective review. Whatever my difficulties with George, I tried to keep my personal animosity out of the bulk of the review, and describe his argument as clearly, honestly, and concisely as I could.

I think I did a reasonable job. Personally, I think I did a better job explaining his "proof" than he did. Mind you, I'm sure George won't be happy with it, but I don't think he'd be happy with anything short of "it's the most important book ever written".

millishka:

No alchohol involved.

There was a small amount of coedine, because I'm recovering from a nasty case of viral bronchitis. But I don't think that that reduced the pain of reading it at all. (Fortunately it did reduce the pain of nearly coughing my lungs out. I coughed hard enough to actually rupture my vocal cords. Not something I particularly recommend doing; it hurts like bloody hell, and the ENT said my voice is never going to be quite the same.)

For a genuine discussion on a proposed proof of the existence of God, one can hardly do better than Melvin Fitting's book on Godel's ontological argument.

http://www.amazon.com/Types-Tableaus-G%C3%B6dels-Trends-Logic/dp/140200…

Fitting formulates Godel's argument using modal type theory, so rigor is not an issue. It is the question of whether Godel's assumptions are both self evident and consistent that makes the argument philosophically interesting. And even if you aren't interested in Godel's particular argument, the book is still a fantastic introduction to extensionality and intensionality in modal logic. Highly recommended.

Coin:

I think that different people categorize the various god-existence proofs in different ways.

The way I learned it, the cosmological argument is basically fine-tuning: "the universe is so perfectly fitted to us, that it couldn't have happened by chance, ..."; the ontological argument is an argument from the existence of concepts: "concepts are necessarily connected to reality; since there is a concept of infinity, there be an infinity, and that's God."

As a historian of science whose main area of interest is in exactly in this period I thought I would say a few words on the on the dating of the end of the Middle Ages. As Mark said it is still a controversial subject but a consensus seems to be forming amongst historians that the Middle Ages flows into the Early Modern Period around 1400, although it is now generally accepted that there is not the level of discontinuity between the Middle Ages and the modern period that was traditionally believed to exist. Nicolas Cusanus is certainly a transitional figure with both mediaeval and proto-modern aspects in his thought. His ideas in mathematics and astronomy certainly point towards the future rather than the past.

On Newton our "disciple of the one and only truth" certainly manages to get almost everything wrong. Firstly, Newton's philosophy was not mechanical (the dominant philosophy of science of the period), which caused his theory of gravity to be massively attacked by both the Cartesians and the Leibnizians. He was accused of reintroducing "occult entities" (his gravity) into physics. Newton would have been horrified at being called a Deist. The Newtonians fought tooth and claw to try and convince the world that belief in Newtonianism does not automatically lead to deism and thus down the slippery slope to atheism. This is the reason that Newton hypothesised that God would have to interfere in his creation from time to time, "rewind the clock", otherwise the God of his theory would become an absentee creator leading to deism.

I'm impressed that you read George's book; I don't believe I would've, nor will I ever do so. But then, I guess you painted yourself into a corner by promising to read it if someone sent it to you. (lol) Live and learn.

For your vocal chords I wish the swiftest and most thorough recovery possible.

You may be an OK mathematician, but you are a lousy book reviewer. Although my prejudices tell me that this guy is a raving lunatic, your review did nothing to convince me of this. On the contrary, it sounds as though he raises some interesting ideas. Topos theory (the foundational maths of generalised logic using diagram techniques) is fast becoming recognised as a promising tool to study Quantum Gravity, a respectable subject that cannot baulk at discussing concepts of infinity in a universal realm. Moreover, the terms 'symbols' has been widely used, notably by the 19th century mathematical philosopher C. S. Peirce, the founder of modern Category Theoretical maths. Perhaps this book is incoherent as you say, but you do not appear to have addressed the underlying arguments.

the beginning of the Renaissance in Italty

because they're not the same thing infinity.

Good to see that the tradition of spelling/grammar flames (not that this is a spelling/grammar flame, per se, but it includes an element of such...) including their own spelling/grammar faults is being preserved :)

I thought that Thony C.'s comments were most interesting. Although I've taught some History of Science courses, I am not any kind of acknowledged expert. Indeed, part of the reason that I read a lot of History of Science to write my roughly thousand-page (if printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper) Chronology of Science, Mathematics, Literature, and the like was to deepen my understanding of periods with which I was less familar, and other cultures (China, Japan, Korea, Persia) with which I was also undereducated. [at my web domain, click on "timeline"]

I agree that "Nicolas Cusanus is certainly a transitional figure with both mediaeval and proto-modern aspects in his thought."

The matter of Newton is infinitely complex. I read everything I can on Newton, and discuss him with the real experts -- such as Caltech historian Mordechai Feingold, "a specialist in the history of 17th- and 18th- century science, [and] curator of the Newton exhibit.... [in 2005] at the Huntington Library in San Marino."

[excerpt from]

The Newtonian Moment Arrives for Caltech Historian

By Mark Wheeler

There is an anecdote about Sir Isaac Newton--a true one--about the time he stuck a knife in his eye. Naturally it was all in the interest of science: Newton was studying the properties of light, and as he later wrote, "I took a bodkin [a type of dagger] and put it between my eye and the bone as near to the backside of my eye as I could, & pressing my eye with the end of it (so as to make the curvature in my eye) there appeared several white, dark and coloured circles. . ."

The bizarre description goes on, and when considered in the context of his other peculiarities--his written confession about "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them," his reputation for aloof arrogance, his lifelong interest in alchemy (a popular medieval pursuit that, among other things, sought to transmute base metals into gold)--it's led some to argue that Newton, in addition to being a brilliant scientist, was mad as a hatter.

Of course this is the man who discovered the law of universal gravitation and planetary motion, invented calculus, and proved that white light is composed of a spectrum of colors. What does it matter if people think he was crazy?

It matters, says Caltech's Mordechai Feingold, because it "presents a distorted picture of the remarkable man that Newton actually was. Some people would indeed like to think that Newton was not a man of reason, but of madness and alchemy," says the professor of history. "And there are indeed some anecdotes about him not eating, not sleeping, his hair staying unkempt." Most of those examples, he says, stem from a single 18-month period when the protean scientist was writing his most important work, the Principia Mathematica. "Eighteen months," says Feingold, "does not
reflect his whole life.

"Certainly Newton had his eccentricities," he adds, "and he was a complex person. It's difficult for us to conceive of someone with that kind of mind, a mind that thinks in different terms than you and I.

"So he wasn't like us, but he wasn't a dejected, solitary, raving lunatic. He was like many professors at Caltech!" he laughs...."

[truncated]

Google the article title for more, all interesting.

"I took a bodkin [a type of dagger]"

A bodkin is not a knife but a sewing needle, and Newton was definitely not mad. His interest in alchemy (Renaissance rather that Mediaeval) was shared by both Locke and Boyle and its philosophy was a driving force in his scientific theories, on this see the excellent books of Betty Jo Tucker-Dobbs. Mordechai Feingold's work is also excellent.

Thank you for "taking one for the team." I'd prefer not to have my own eyes stabbed out with a rusty steak knife. It can be dangerous you know; chance of tetanus if you're not up on your shots.

Thanks Mark. I'm glad someone did it and I'm glad it wasn;t me. It's exactly what I expected. His babbling and disjointed proofs as promotions of his book along with all the reasons we've been through on how keeping this info from the public shows his character fit right in with exactly how your review came out. He's a sick Old Man and apparently he's a nasty vile sick old man.

I've spent far to much time at his blog reading his incoherent posts. I don't think I'll be returning. Thankfully neither of us had to actually pay for the book.

Even in this short passage, it's astonishing how much just plain wierd stuff he manages to throw in.

Ha ha. That's a weird spelling. It's fair game to nitpick because you take the author to task for poor language skills.

Mustafa:

Absolutely. When I reread the post on sunday, I noticed a couple of errors (although, to be honest, I didn't notice the "wierd" error). But given that I'm being so critical of George for his sloppy proofreading, it really wouldn't be fair for me to go back and edit the post to correct mine. I deserve all of the abuse I get for it.

I again completely with Thony C.

There is an ambiguity:
"Bodkin was a Renaissance term used to describe many different sharp instruments, but it makes the most sense here to assume Shakespeare meant a dagger."

The reference to Hamlet's Soliloquy: To be, or not to be: that is the question (3.1.64-98) (this being the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and death):

... there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, (80)
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, (85)
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

As to the key word PROOF in "The First Scientific Proof of God:" one might mention this, in a computational context perhaps on Mark CC's wavelength:

"... it is essential for there to be a common language and understanding. Standard mathematical definitions and algorithms serve as a vehicle of human communication. In constructivist terms, individuals may well understand and visualize their the concepts in their own private ways, but we all still have to learn to communicate our thoughts in a commonly accepted language."
["Doing and Proving: The Place of Algorithms and Proofs in School Mathematics", Kenneth A. Ross, The Ame3rican Mathematical Monthly, March 1998, pp.252-255, p.253.

It isn't surprising that persons in transitions, such as Newton, had their feet in both the old an the new. We all have, but it is more visible there.

It is also hard to put oneself in the frame of mind of persons in history. So while we know more about the value of the ideas than the contemporaries, we have a harder time to judge the personality.

Newton hypothesised that God would have to interfere in his creation from time to time

Not an outlandish hypothesis at the time, since it turned out to take a long time to understand dynamics and short time stability (or lack of it) in planetary systems.

I coughed hard enough to actually rupture my vocal cords.

Ouch! I didn't know one could do that. But that coughing hard can be painful (and lead to vomiting :-|) I learned when I had my first (and, I hope, last; both vaccines and antibiotics are improving) bout of whooping cough. So you have my heartfelt sympathies.

Kea:

Although my prejudices tell me that this guy is a raving lunatic, your review did nothing to convince me of this.

Um, the book quote supports the "reads like a text written by someone suffering from serious brain damage" analysis. I don't see where "raving lunatic" was mentioned.

Topos theory (the foundational maths of generalised logic using diagram techniques) is fast becoming recognised as a promising tool to study Quantum Gravity

I don't know anything about topos theory (though I like the n-category café discussions and the presumed connections to computer science) but I see it defined as "a type of category that behaves like the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space".

Now, I wouldn't kick topos theory out of hand, but it doesn't seem to be much used by physicists. "I'll warn you: despite Chris Isham's work applying topos theory to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and Anders Kock and Bill Lawvere's work applying it to differential geometry and mechanics, topos theory hasn't really caught on among physicists yet." (April 12 2006, http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/topos.html )

When I google "topos theory" with "string theory" I get mere 50 000 hits (of string theory 24 million or topos theory 430 000). In arxiv I get mere 60 hits on "topos" on the whole physics section, while I max out (more than 1000 hits) on "strings".

In both cases the top ones seems to be from the perspective of other approaches, that are based more on properties of topology and geometry than quantum physics. arxiv has 1 paper out of the 60 mentioning strings, from Isham on state-vector reduction.

So I am wondering what basis you have for it being recognized in quantum gravity research at large?

Kea:

Somehow I edited away the text which motivated why I looked at string theory, and QG at large.

String theory is the promising QG theory.

The other theories haven't complied with quantization and local Lorentz invariance (which both QM and GR, and so presumably QG does) so they are not promising AFAIK. If they were, I guess topos theory could be promising here in a non-general context.

I coughed hard enough to actually rupture my vocal cords.

Ouch! I didn't know one could do that. But that coughing hard can be painful (and lead to vomiting :-|) I learned when I had my first (and, I hope, last; both vaccines and antibiotics are improving) bout of whooping cough. So you have my heartfelt sympathies.

I didn't know it was possible to do that either until I did :-). The vomiting thing is not a problem for me, because after my stomach surgery a few years ago, I'm no longer physically capable of vomiting. In general, that's a very bad thing, but when you're suffering from a cough like this, it's sort-of good; at least I don't have to worry about that.

(My surgery is actually pretty interesting in its way. You take a person who has severe reflux, because the LES, the lower esophageal sphincter at the top of the stomach doesn't close properly. So you take some of the tissue from stomach, and pull it up and wrap it around the LES, and tie it there. So there's a sort of knot of stomach tissue wrapped around the LES just under the diaphram. Now, whenever there's pressure in the stomach that could cause reflux, the pressure pushes that knot of tissue against the diaphram, which causes it to squeeze closed. Voila! A working LES.)

OED Bodkin:Blunt thick needle for drawing tape etc. through hem. This is exactly the instrument that is illustrated by Newton himself in his notes over the rather nasty experiment with his own eye. The page of his notebook is reproduced in Richard Westfall's "Never at Rest:A Biography of Isaac Newton" page 95 paperback edition. But you are right a bodkin is also a dagger.

Mark, you've been turned in!

ROFLMAO. I used to visit Georgie's blog but I couldn't take the insanity any longer. Thanks for the review, although I would have been interested in more depth. Of course I'm assuming there was any to be had.

the pressure pushes that knot of tissue against the diaphram, which causes it to squeeze closed. Voila! A working LES.)

Wow, a one-way valve is improving natural function, I believe!

For myself, I think growing up has improved immune defense and LES function (at least increased the pipe length against gravitational pull :-), so I'm not sure I would have the same problem if whooping cough would reoccur in spite of vaccine. (And someday I hope they make a more aggressive vaccine. Lifelong immunization is a possibility.)

Actually, the LES when it functions normally is effectively a mostly one-way valve; and being able to make things go the other way when necessary is a good thing.

For most people, a stomach virus is unpleasant; for me, a stomach virus is an almost unimaginably horrible thing. A few years ago, my wife and I went out to dinner for our anniversary, and we ordered oysters. I got a bad oyster, and came down with Norwalk virus, which is one of the more severe gastro bugs. My LES no longer allows me to vomit, but my reflexes don't know that. So I ended up spending the entire night in front of a toilet, retching, because my body was determined to expel the nasty invaders. And then I spent the next two weeks pretty much in bed, because of all of the muscles that I'd pulled.

On the other hand, if I hadn't had the stomach surgery, I would almost certainly be dead of esophageal cancer by now. People with reflex as bad as I had usually wind up with esophageal cancer, and the survival rate of that is incredibly low. So all in all, it's a more than fair trade.

String theory is the promising QG theory.

The other theories haven't complied with quantization and local Lorentz invariance (which both QM and GR, and so presumably QG does) so they are not promising AFAIK. If they were, I guess topos theory could be promising here in a non-general context.

Torbjörn, I'm sorry to drag things off topic a bit, but could you maybe try to explain what exactly it means that Loop Quantum Gravity does not "comply with quantization"?

Thanks.

(Surprisingly, it turns out someone actually already went to the bother of writing a whole wikipedia article summarizing the Lorentz invariance related difficulties in LQG, so I won't waste your time asking about that... :) )

As much as I enjoy this blog (or, perhaps, because I enjoy this bolg) I have to say that spending so much time and energy in fisking a book by a mentally-ill person, with no influence or followers whatsoever, is demeaning to you. You need to let this go.

I have to say that spending so much time and energy in fisking a book by a mentally-ill person, with no influence or followers whatsoever, is demeaning to you.

I'm going to take the contrary position and say that whether or not this review was a good use of Mark's time, it was at least fascinating to read.

Where there's one crazy, there's another one to agree with him. I don't see any particular reason why the field examination of crazies need be considered a demeaning occupation.

Torbjörn, I'm sorry to drag things off topic a bit, but could you maybe try to explain what exactly it means that Loop Quantum Gravity does not "comply with quantization"?

Not really, since I can't quantize. :-)

But what I have gathered from others, LQG doesn't do traditional quantization. Quantization (several kinds) have physical motivation.

Canonical quantization of classical fields starts with the vacuum state, the lowest energy state.

By introducing operators that creates (and removes) particles from the classical field, one can supposedly describe a quantized field with its particles. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_quantization )

As I understand it, LQG doesn't have a lowest energy state. ( http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/string/archives/000299.html , LQG eq 6 compared to QFT eq 5.)

So they use their own method of quantization, which ends up with something else than the usual Hilbert space.

Actually I think they argue that the discrete geometry of their spin network states pretty much is the quantization. (By demanding commutation of constraints on the network, see the technical discussion following eq 1 ibid.)

If so, I think they have completely transformed the usual beautiful picture of QM as the only theory capable of combining genuine continuous and discrete states into something ugly that approximates continuity. But I can be wrong.

Some results seems to show that they have problems:

First, as noted, they can't check their result for local Lorentz invariance. Some claims since some formulations are traced from general relativity, they should fulfill this. But as I understand it, it isn't certain that they fulfill GR.

And in any case one must apparently specifically check after quantization for fulfilling SR, as QFT's claims to do. Sometimes the resulting quantized theories needs adjustment or are discarded, I think.

Second, allegedly they can't produce a simple harmonic oscillator.

Notes:
1. Don't take my word for it, though. Any and all of the above can be in error.
2. Personally, I find the whole "spacetime geometrization" stuff peculiar. While Planck length is the minimum length we can observe for fundamental reasons, observables are continous down to these scales.

Spacetime warped on small length scales or particles resolving into strings confined between branes I can swallow from a physics standpoint, making contact with previous results. Suddenly appearing discrete structures gets stuck in my throat.

Frankly, it reminds me of creationists 'magic species barrier'.

I see, thank you.

(Just to clarify though, if you know-- something you touched on and I've been wondering about. Is there any meaningful difference between saying something is "quantized" and saying that it is "discrete"? Would it be correct to say that any "quantized geometry" would be, by definition, a discrete one?)

Is there any meaningful difference between saying something is "quantized" and saying that it is "discrete"?

Ooops. Now you asked about QM, which I'm supposed to know a little bit about. :-)

Unfortunately, my text books are outdated, and my work is only slightly related at best. I will do what I can.

Classically (well, perhaps not so classically ;-) quanta was introduced as a means to explain blackbody spectra, by Planck of course. They were discrete energy units that placed his blackbody oscillator model into discrete states.

Later Einstein found out from the photoelectric effect that light in fact can be seen as quantized particles. So here the quantum description is roughly discrete particles and discrete states.

Later it was found that a quantum systems measurable state observables were several, such as position and momentum.

In the Schrödinger picture (wavefunction) it is easy to see that boundedness (finite values) means discrete states, while unboundedness (practically: freedom) means continuous states. (Discrete, with some uncertainty introduced by finite state times.) There is a connection to the classical duality of discrete Fourier spectra describing continuous periodic signals and oscillators.

So the emphasis shifted to quantization as satisfying the above requirement - boundedness introduces discrete values.

Or more generally in QFT's (which I haven't looked at), quantization as a procedure seems to introduce the possibility of discrete states in a classical continuous field - the field as an infinite system of interacting particles instead of as an infinite number of dynamical quantities.

In summary, a system that is quantized have both continuous and discrete states. To say that "quantized" means "discrete" is to miss the beauty and more importantly the basic fact that quantization combines both discreteness and continuity in a meaningful sense. (As a consequence of boundedness/unboundedness.)

Would it be correct to say that any "quantized geometry" would be, by definition, a discrete one?)

I think the idea is that spacetime is a property of general relativity, so it should be quantizable to make a theory that combines QM and gravity. And since spacetime has a geometric description in GR, it is quantization of geometry. Plus, Planck length suggests for some that spacetime is discrete at some scale.

Well, it is generalizing the ordinary QM to quantize properties it doesn't usually do. (Position is a property of spacetime, not spacetime itself.) Which is a problem, it seems.

Assuming that it would work, it should have both discrete and continuous states. Perhaps the discrete states are seen at high energies/small scales, and the continuous at lower energies/larger scales. That may roughly be the idea.

That helps a lot, thanks.

Prepare yourselves: More proof is on the way!
Best-selling Author Will 'Prove' God's Existence

ABC to Air LIVE Atheist Debate with Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort
...
ABC loved the idea, and will host a debate in New York City on May 5, 2007. Moderated by Martin Bashir, the debate will be streamed LIVE on their website and will also be filmed for "Nightline."
...

These are the folks behind the devestating banana and peanut butter videos, so expect some big time intellectual firepower.

Wow. Who's Ray Comfort?

Oh, wait, no, I was confused. The quote made it sound at first like Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron were debating each other. Instead, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron are together debating... um... who? "Atheists"? Is this actually a "debate"?

What is wrong with you Mark? The man is 77 and he suffered a stroke.

What's the matter, O'Brien? I thought you were interested in excavating shoddy argumentation, wherever it could be found, and exposing it to the light of day.

At least this man's 77 and has suffered a stroke. What's your excuse?

The argument between no-god and god is a human created attempt to separate that which in essence is symbiotic. There is fabrication on both sides to rationalize either sides bias.

To use an analogy that is easier to grasp: the human created argument between pro-life and freedom of choice. These too, are symbiotic. and for anyone who has or wants to present doubt about this, that doubt can be exposed for the nothingness that it is by simply asking a starving child about his freedom of choice to live.

Is there a "god"? Yes there is, however, this "god" is not what most people probably think it is or is not.

Is this "god" existance provable via math? Not really, as this gets into the problem of trying to solve a language problem by creating another language, adding to the tower of babel problem.

Paying attention Mark?

Math does not grow on trees or exist in nature outside of conscious ability to formulate and use abstraction to .... communicate. A rock doesn't know about abstraction, nor does a tree or most living creatures.

Math is a subset of abstraction. Abstraction includes all human languages, including programming languages.

However there are the underlying actions that enables us to create abstractions and manipulate them. The action set is constant and even translates to non-conscious levels of life and physics.

Abstractions can be distorted for use in deception, distractions and detours. This can be considered the down side of abstraction, but it can also be used for entertainment, etc..

If everyone had mind reading ability then the languages we use would more clearly be exposed for the limitations and constraints in thinking, they contain.

An example of such limitation is the roman numeral symbol system, unable to do advanced math, yet it survived some 300 years after the hundu-arabic decimal system, with it nothing can have value zero place holder, was introduced. Considering how much easier and more powerful the decimal system is over the roman numeral system, one must question why it took so long for the transition.

What mental distortions did man have that caused the delay?

What mental distortions do we have today that prevent the faster acceptance of Abstraction Physics?

On the topic of "god" and proof. Symbiotic indeed!
We create and advance our knowledge (what exist in conscious abstraction) and technology to enable ourselves to have greater control over what exist in existance. Even today we can manipulate genetics to create new and different than has ever existed known forms of life. Project this forward and the day can come when we understand physics enough to perhaps collapse a gravity cell to cause a big bang and a whole new galaxy.

Why would we do this is simple. It all comes down to survival, the survival of consciousness. If you are all that exist, how will you know you will continue to exist unless you are expanding, growing?

Perhaps it all began with nothing splitting in half into the awareness/consciousness of existance and all that can exist in it (consciousness and existance).

Analogies and Metaphors are used to extend the limitations of a language but can also be distorted or not understood as intended.

But to understand Abstraction Physics, the ultimate question to ask regarding an abstract communication, is whether or not it honestly gets you to where you want to go.

Play a con to get something from someone. Does it get you to where you wanted to go? Did it get them to where they wanted to go?

Computer Programming is an art of abstraction creation and manipulation. But the way it is applied today is in analogy like applying roman numerals for math calculation.

And only a fool would think nothing can have value.....(easy good sounding deception to suppress the general population mental understanding and use of the zero place holder - protecting the roman numeral elite accountant and their financial and social position).
Sound familiar?

What happens if abstraction physics becomes widely understood, where people can much more easily see past abstract deceptions?

As a methphor one might explain it as though an angel came forth with a key to the bottomless pit, to throw the beast into the pit and lock the beast away. The beast of course being man abstract deceptions.

Father physics and mother nature are the parents of man. man cannot deny them without suffering the consequences, but to work in accord with them.... well deception, abstract or otherwise, is not working in accord with ..... survival and growth of what exist in existance and in consciousness.

Whether or not "god" exist debate is really nothing more than a deception of creating a problem that does not actually exist. And that is where proof will be found. A simple matter of consciousness.

Shorter Tim Rue:

'Gods exists because we can observe consciousness.'

Well, observing consciousness in humans and animals shows that consciousness exist. But not much more. :-)

Now, I don't know how to show that there are no gods with a testable theory. (I'm pretty confident that we can show that there are no miracles around, however.)

But if inference is enough (as for bayesians), we have the following argument why the universe is natural:

P(N|T&D) > P(N|D), where N = Natural universe, T = natural Theory, D = observed Data; i.e. each time we can explain data with a natural theory the probability that the universe is natural increases.

This oneliner is a reasonable perspective to Schollenberger's book and similar speculations. It is also free of charge. ;-)

What's the matter, O'Brien? I thought you were interested in excavating shoddy argumentation, wherever it could be found, and exposing it to the light of day.

I do not support attacking an old man who has suffered brain damage.

As for you, Caledonian, your internet sophistry is only slightly less inchoate.

A corrected shorter version of Tim Rues comment:

As freedom of choice and right to life are the same inseparatable matter, so is god and consciousness. Though many don't know the difference between consciousness from that of being awake and self aware, there is a difference.

And as science has recognized, you cannot prove a negative, i.e. that god does NOT exist. To try and do so would be an effort to be self defeating. To know the future and be able to stop something bad from happening, if you do so then did you really know the future, or are you just crazy to think you did? Or how would you prove it, that you did change the future?

T. Larsson,
For fun, describe the natural events that explain, without miracles: the floating axe head, feeding the multitude, water to wine, walking on water, the events of the exodus, etc..

One person responded to my common sense description that she did not believe god would violate the physical and natural laws he/she created, in order to make a miracle happen. (I suppose that would be cheating or a double standard- if they did).

Tim:

I don't usually argue with people who has made their mind up.

But for the innocent bystanders I can at least point out the incorrect science. But it is all I can do - for example, discussing unsupported miracles as if they really happened is crazy thinking.

Though many don't know the difference between consciousness from that of being awake and self aware, there is a difference.

Consciousness is studied by neuroscience. There is yet no complete description.

Self awareness is certainly considered to be part of a conscious mind. Sleep is an irrelevant (here) epiphenomena.

as science has recognized, you cannot prove a negative

I have no idea why some people say that. If they knew science, they would know better.

Science routinely show negatives, and can conclude universal negatives from theories. In fact, science progresses by showing negatives, i.e. by falsifying theories that doesn't work. It doesn't matter whether we are discussing negatives of facts, nonexistence of objects, or nonexistence of theories; science does it all.

To know the future and be able to stop something bad from happening, if you do so then did you really know the future, or are you just crazy to think you did?

This is incoherent, but it could be a suggestion that theories doesn't lend trust. But they do - observations and hypothesis testing on stationary processes means that we can elevate from belief in unsupported faith to knowledge of supported trust.

The classical atheist position on the "Problem of Evil" is nicely structured as a 2x2 Boolean table by Lactantius [c. 240-320] quoting Epicurus, as translated by William Dyrness, "Christian Apologetics
in a World Community", Downer's Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 1983, p.153:

"God either wishes to take away evils, and is unable;
or he is able and unwilling;
or he is neither willing nor able;
or he is both willing and able.
If he is willing and unable, he is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God;
if he is able and unwilling, he is envious, which is equally at variance with God;
if he is neither willing nor able he is both envious and feeble and therefore not God;
if he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does he not remove them?"

I was reminded of this argument by "The Lion, the Witch, and the Bible: Good and Evil in the Classic Tales of C.S. Lewis", Robert Velarde, Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005, p.23.

I am a scientist. I am not a Christian. I bought this because C.S. Lewis is, to me, an interesting Fantasy/Science Fiction author, albeit second-rate compared to Tolkien, because Lewis is trying to seduce
readers into his version of Christianity, whereas Tolkien clearly doesn't care what the readers believe.

It seems likely to me that PZ Myers considers all religion to be Fairy Tales, which is a perfectly self-consistent position. Epicurus, because of his explicit belief in Democritus' Atomism, is a
philosophical predecessor of modern atheist Science.

C.S. Lewis, in "Out of the Silent Planet" -- the 3rd book of the Perelandra trilogy -- is clearly making a cruel characature of H. G. Wells as the bloviating atheist scientist front-man for the satanic "macrobe" in the talking severed head.

Can god be proven to exist via mathematics? No, because mathematics is an abstraction and even if god were just an abstraction created by man, the man created abstraction of math cannot prove or disprove the existance of another abstraction. The fact that another abstraction is conceived is enough to prove the existance of itself.

As to science proving a negative, have at it, prove god doesn't exist.

Where are the common sense explanations of events described in the religions books? Events described as miracles, as you say there are none.

Perhaps you were just make believing, as in creating abstraction sequences that sound good?

Tim Rue:

You kinda had my attention until you started equating mythology as hard scientific and historical fact.

At first I thought you were pointing to a God that exists translogically, metaphorically, and transcendentally as ALL of subjective/objective existence/conscousness (which is a valid poetical pov), but apparently you're instead conflating your absolutist metaphors with scientific proof/probability.

Off to the dustbin of superstitious incoherence with you.