Through a particle accelerator darkly... A glimpse of the 'God Particle'?

 Have we just glimpsed God being sacked?

It looks like Richard Dawkins' (adopted) invention has come back to haunt him. To the uninitiated, this hi-tech graphic from the Large Hadron Collider could be taken for a flying spaghetti monster.... and if a flying spaghetti monster has been discovered then, in the Gospel according to Dick, God's chances of existing must have just improved. God must be relieved. Of course, this isn't a flying spaghetti monster, but it may provide an example of evidence of the existence of the so-called God Particle, the Higgs Boson. What goes around comes around, Dick, and sometimes very quickly - especially in high energy particle accelerators. To corrupt a favourite quote of Slicer's from Dana Scully, 'this is no place for a biologist.'

Physics is Slicer's fave branch of science. He revels in the new understandings which it provides progressively of how nature works. The summer before last, he reviewed a book by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek, "The Lightness of Being." It's a fascinating text aimed at getting across complex ideas to non-physicists like Slicer, and Slicer rated it as successful at achieving that goal (insofar as he could tell since he's not a physicist - but you gotta assess it from one end or the other, and you can't be both a non-physicist and a physicist!). Wilczek highlights that matter, all the "stuff" we're familiar with, isn't just a set of building blocks stuck together like Lego.

 

Each of the building blocks is a kind of condensate from the fundamental fields or ethers which we can't see, and each mediates the effect of its associated field. Although there is often uncertainty around individual events at quantum level, fundamental small-scale uncertainty ultimately distills into large scale certainty - we are happy to depend upon knowledge of the conditions under which water boils/freezes, aeroplanes fly, guns recoil, brakes slow us down.... Heck, atoms hold together... It's not that classical physics was 'wrong' in its large-scale predictions (in everyday life, the velocity of a body remains constant unless it is acted upon by an external force; force is still a product of mass and acceleration eg the force of gravity). It just proved insufficient and inaccurate, wrong even, when we get to the extremely large or extremely small. It seems that the journalists regularly misrepresent/misunderstand* scientific understanding so the next few short paragraphs are Slicer's attempt at 'Noddy's Guide' to what is the fuss about the Higgs Boson, for the benefit (hopefully) of those who've read even less physics than him. Stick with it - it's not hard, at Slicer's level of understanding, anyway:

 

Many of these fields are difficult to detect, some more-so than others, but we can infer their characteristics from the particles that are associated with them. "We" here refers to we humans, when of course in reality it's only the very gifted minority that do this on behalf of the rest of us. The electromagnetic field is evidenced by its fundamental (ie indivisible or quantum) particle of light, the photon. By light Slicer means the whole electromagnetic frequency/wavelength spectrum - not just the tiny part of the spectrum that we can see. 

 

Modern physics classifies and describes the fundamental components - fields and particles - of the "stuff" of the universe that we're used to, in what is known as the "Standard Model." It's a bit like a jigsaw in which the pieces were predicted to be a certain shape/picture component using mathematics, often before they were demonstrated to exist/be that shape. The maths extrapolated beyond what we knew by measurement to be the case, to what we thought might be, but we didn't know whether the extrapolations/ predictions (our 'model') were correct until we found the jigsaw pieces/particles/fields the maths predicted. And we did... However, there was a known gap in the jigsaw - a 'fudge factor' which needed to be applied in order for all the rest to fit together.

 

In 1964 Peter Higgs (and some others) came up with a mathematical solution - and its prediction is the Higgs field, with the associated fundamental particle the Higgs Boson. In principle, this missing jigsaw piece could actually be several interconnecting pieces - several fields and several associated Higgs particles, which up to this point have not been observed.

 

This idea prompts a musical interlude: Northern Irish singer Juliet Turner's brilliant album "People have names" contains the following song. It was written about how a job can get in the way of family relationship, but Slicer thinks it's appropriate musical accompaniment to the notion of the Higgs field too, and also  to considering another entity with low visibility in the present. (He'll come back to home/family stuff later). Slicer dedicates its inclusion here to all the hardworking boys and girls at CERN who've stayed up late at night, 'doing their thinking, spending their time, rubbing their eyes 'til they are sore' .... perhaps at the expense of family life, to collect and process data, and who'll continue to do so next year to help make the truth about Higgs more clear.

"All my possibilities lie open to the sky... they're here all the time, invisible to the eye..." - how true of the quantum world... 

 

A key task of experiments at Large Hadron Collider (LHC), our most powerful particle accelerator, is to go looking for the Higgs particle, not as an end in itself, but to demonstrate the presence of the Higgs field, in which it is thought "we live, and move, and have our being." If the omnipresent Higgs field is confirmed, it essentially validates the entire Standard Model - that particular jigsaw is shown to form a complete picture, with all of the other pieces in the right place. But what is the bit of the picture on the Higgs piece, on which the rest of the picture depends for its completeness?

 

It is pretty central to our picture.... without it all the other fundamental particles have no inherent mass. The Higgs mechanism only accounts for 2% of the mass of 'stuff' as the majority is actually the binding energy of fundamental particles, so what's the big deal? Without this 2%, atoms would not hold together and the cosmos as we know it would not exist. If Higgs isn't the answer, something else has to fill that void in the jigsaw. The Higgs mechanism is a proposal that particles acquire mass by interaction with the postulated Higgs field. Those particles that interact more with the field are slowed down by it as they move - they are more massive; other particles, which may be of similar 'size' to the former, interact less, continue to travel faster, and so are less massive. The Higgs field has been compared with a bowl of molasses - as particles travel through it, the molasses sticks to them, slowing them down. But the molasses sticks more to some particles, slowing them down more, than others. The Higgs field also has importance to cosmology, as it is thought to have been instrumental, a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang, for the formation of structure out of 'sameness,' or out of 'symmetry' - the scaffolding, if you like, around which a structured universe distilled. Before that the universe was "without form..." Maybe it's becoming clear why the media love dubbing the Higgs Boson the God Particle....

Prof Matt Strassler will explain the history of that nickname, and how it's viewed in the physics community. This is an excerpt from a talk he gave this year at the "Secret Science Club," which evidently is not-so-secret anymore. He goes on to explain a little bit about fields - if you want you can stay for the trip, but it's not essential:

 

Is the LHC trying to catch Higgs particles, or to make them?

As Slicer understands it (happy to be corrected if wrong), when protons are accelerated around the LHC to near the speed of light before being crashed into one another, physicists don't think of those collisions as being just train wrecks which might fling the Higgs Boson out as a constituent part, like a bolt being dislodged; rather they hope to achieve such energetic collisions as to cause the postulated Higgs field to resonate, and distill or create a Higgs Boson. Make no mistake, particles are regularly created, and morph from one form into another, in particle accelerators (see earlier post on Wilczek's book for more details). The Higgs Boson, however, is predicted to decay/morph extremely rapidly into other particles, in a predictable fashion. It is these latter 'Higgs signature' particles which are sought as indicators of the Higgs particle and its field.

 

In the last 24 hours, teams from CERN have announced their findings, on the basis of data collected from experiments over the last year. Two separate experiments/technologies seem to be providing independent data supportive of a Higgs particle at energy of around 125 GeV, and the excitement in the physics community (and in the author of this blog) is palpable. Given the high standards which physics require for statistical 'certainty,' the data at present is insufficient to amount to having 'discovered' the Higgs Particle, and it is therefore possible that the apparent signal(s) could be just noise, but the next number of months will likely resolve that one way or the other. For those who want to hear more information, really well explained by a proper expert, click to hear LHC physicist Prof Jon Butterworth take these concepts, and a few others, a bit further.

 

Is God redundant? Emmm.... noooo....whether or not Higgs is/are there, and whatever energy/mass it/they are found to have. When physicists are asked where did the (postulated) Higgs field come from, they often treat that as an irrelevant question - it just 'is.' It's part of the fabric of our universe... fortuitously as it turns out. However, lest theists rub their hands with glee, it's a pretty poor consolation, and a pretty lightweight foundation for theology and for faith - another example of "God of the Gaps." The consolation prize may rapidly turn into a booby prize if/when a mechanism for the appearance/distillation of the Higgs field emerges.

 

The theological poverty of that position was pointed out some time back by respected former particle physicist John Polkinghorne (who made major contribution to the understanding of other fundamental particles, quarks, but latterly became an Anglican minister): God is not just Creator in the sense of someone who lit the blue touchpaper and stood back. Creation is ongoing - stars continue to be born, elements continue to be forged in the heavens, fundamental particles appear and disappear, seemingly ex nihilo. He is Alpha, Omega and everything else in between. He is Sustainer as well as Creator. He permeates his entire created order, and transcends it. We shouldn't be looking for him only outside the natural, we should be looking for him within it. He thought it was very good when He made it, wanted to have relationship with man within it, set foot within it, revealed more of himself and his purposes than He ever had before while within it, and here created the means by which we can have restored relationship with him within it, and with others within it. This time of year commemorates when He became integrated into the natural, material order. While walking around amongst us, He even warned us against depending on supernatural spectaculars - He suggested it was evidence of a lack of faith, and then underlined it by legitimising an enhanced understanding of the natural world! (Meteorology isn't that far from physics...)

Slicer fully understands and sympathises with the materialist mindset, to which this seems superfluous gobbledygook, and which asks the (rhetorical) question "What does God bring to the party?" The Christian theist response continues to be: meaning, purpose, redemption, objective reality (and definition) of good and evil, forgiveness, humility, responsibility; concepts of 'ought,' not just is; suggestions of why, not just how.... oh, and love. CERN will enlighten us on none of these - they're not measured in GeV. Slicer holds (yes, dogma! - An understanding arrived at by a route independent of the scientific method) that the Creator God delights in the complexity of the universe, and is a Father who also takes delight in his children learning more and more about the cosmos; but He rates love, mercy, justice and faithful relationship much higher than head knowledge. We get to see these by a different route altogether; and we get to glimpse their author through a glass darkly for the present.

Regarding the future, in a lesser known work a well-known songwriter croaked "Look out across the fields, see me returning." A sort of Adventy notion, second time around... Slicer notes that he's in good company quoting this artist in the context of an article on physics, given the fetching title of the fetching Lisa Randall's book, which is near the top of Slicer's own Christmas wishlist:


Randall is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Harvard, and is one of the leading physicists whose work is intimately related to the LHC. (Not sure the title of her earlier tome is a winner tho....!)

 

In yet another song, focusing on the importance of communication in a relationship, the same songwriter sang "Somewhere in this universe there’s a place that you can call home." You gotta work out some balance in life, and some priorities - the Higgs is clearly hugely important, but how do you measure its importance against relationship, against "home"? In fairness, even particle physicists acknowledge this. Speaking of the shutdown over Christmas of the LHC, a senior figure in CERN was reported as saying that the excuse for shutting down was to allow technical adjustments, but the real reason was to ensure that the physicists still had families and homes to return to.

 

The LHC is a fantastic machine - a truly brilliant and powerful tool that gifted men and women have built and are using to unlock many secrets of the universe. Regarding Higgs, we may have seen a glimpse darkly - Slicer is really excited about the potential, and what the LHC will reveal about it - but the Higgs (and the LHC, and arguably the entire scientific method) has its limitations in what it brings to the party...

 

God Particle, my arse.

 

 * a typical example is describing the hunt for the Higgs as the "Holy Grail" of modern physics. If anything deserves that title (physicists usually regard religious metaphors with disdain), it's the unification of forces. The Standard Model does not address this as gravity, the most difficult force to join with others, is still outwith its remit.

Comments

[Shanemuk]

Hiya Slicer, and thanks for dropping by my little bloguette - I'll need to work on some material! Yeah, god particle my arse, but at least the Standard Model had a Higgs-shaped hole, whereas we humans really do not need gods to explain love, joy, morality, purpose, sex, weather, parsnips or blogs. I agree with your physicist author; fundamental particles are really patterns in how space-time is twisted & folded at the Very Small level. Even our division into fields and bosons is really just one way of looking at things, and possibly not even the best. You are right to eschew "god of the gaps" arguments - these never end well for theists :-)Best strategy is to stick to banal sophistry - worked for Plantinga! ;-)

[The Slicer]

Thanks, Shane, for your interest, and taking the trouble to comment. Expected a few more punches to be thrown than have materialised so far. Slicer reckons Newton didn't see a hole in classical physics either... but there it was - he just didn't appreciate quantum physics was needed. Slicer also recognises there are strict materialist 'explanations' of love, joy, purpose, which don't 'require' God/gods... but they're pretty bleak in the context of relationship (http://t-rinder.typepad.com/blog/2011/04/do-you-mind-verb.html)

Clearly no end to your talents - not just genetics, medicine and Egyptology: but also agreeing with Nobel Prizewinning physicists (are you really in a position to challenge?), and feeling able to critique a professional academic philosopher, whose academic opponents acknowledge the robust logical discipline of his arguments, even if they're not persuaded by them. Slicer is also intrigued by your apparent readiness to embrace a particular notion relating to the Very Small which remains to be demonstrated by evidence which seems much further away than that relating to Higgs. There certainly seem to be a whole range of competing hypotheses and theories - string/superstring/M theory, 10/11 dimensional space, technicolor etc on which professional physicists differ - and even less understanding of the nature of so-called dark matter, despite how much of it there seems to be. I'd be interested in your critique (not just banal sophistry ;-)) of the following published scientific paper:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.3276v1

[Shanemuk]

Oh, I can criticise Plantinga all right (and I'll "critique" him some time if I can be arsed - I think I have done this before) - science is my domain, not his, and you don't have to be an expert in syllogisms to pull his crappy logic apart. Maybe his problem is that his opponents in the field of analytic philosophy are just analytic philosophers, not people who actually know very much. Remember, it does not matter if one is a "respected authority" - interested amateurs like our good selves potentially have contributions and refinements to make. So Alvin is entitled to talk about biology, even though he does so ignorantly and erroneously. He is even entitled to call Dawkins "jejune", despite writing a review that is itself a model of the jejune genre (see what I did there?).

As for the physics, I don't pretend to understand it all, but I know what makes sense in my little head, and there you go. Materialism is not bleak in the least - to know that love, joy, etc are features of horizontal relationships without the need to beam in the proverbial magic space pixie is a wonderful and liberating thing.
As for Frank's paper - dunno. I still feel the need to know Why There Is Anything At All, and whatever way I twist that puppy, it still always seems to end up with Maths. I am not aware of any theist (for example) crazy enough to suggest that "god" underpins mathematics itself, although there seem to be plenty of atheists (Hawking included - you see fit to "critique" him - you should look up that word in a dictionary, dude :-) who are happy to wave the old metaphorical (obviously!) hand and dismiss the very question of existence as not meaning very much. Au contraire, I opine, it is the very key to what a Theory of Everything needs to encapsulate.

[The Slicer]

I am one of those theists crazy enough to think that God underpins maths itself. Don't see much difference between that and seeing God underpinning the genetic code/language. To me it's just another example of order. Just as physicists/cosmologists have been so exercised by why there is structure rather than no structure, it seems to me that a true theory of everything needs to account for the existence of mathematics too. If I am crazy, then I guess you gotta call Francis Collins crazy too - and he has serious credentials in both maths and genetics - his book The Language of God refers as much to maths in those terms as to genetics. Then there's Wigner, who highlighted the issue too (as I pointed out towards the end of http://t-rinder.typepad.com/blog/2010/08/what-are-little-boys-made-of-the-lightness-of-being-2008-frank-wilczek.html .... a post that we discussed before in this venue). As I understand it, even Penrose (as you know not a theist), whilst he doesn't agree with Wigner's argument, also has a notion about something 'beyond'/underpinning what we can describe by maths. Clearly it's not a problem either for the likes of John Lennox, Prof of Mathematics at Oxford, or John Barrow (FRS), Prof of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge, both of whom are well-known theists. Even Dawkins, who has debated publicly with Lennox twice, seems to have revised his position on this after their first encounter, to the point of giving respect to Paul Davies (who is possibly a Deist and whom Dawkins had previously sought to discredit), acknowledging a reasonably respectable case could be made for a deistic god, much as argued for previously by Davies (http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2543431/is-richard-dawkins-still-evolving.thtml). [Continued...]

[The Slicer]

[Contd from previous] Slicer has no problem with folk like you and he using intellectual faculties and questioning what's presented, like good scientists should - his criticism relates to when folk attempt to critique beyond their field of expertise and do so badly. There's no doubt that theists have done that, perhaps including Plantinga, (tho' others are much more deserving than him in this regard); but so have non-theists, including Hawking and Dawkins - the latter been criticised by atheists and theists alike for over-reaching, including by Martin Rees, Astrophysicist, former Prof of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge, and a President of the Royal Society. Slicer's point is that none of us cover ourselves with glory or credibility if we declare someone stupid in an area outside our own field, when his/her own peers in the discipline clearly hold a different view.

[Shanemuk]

I think you would have a really hard time making any sort of sensible case for there needing to be an underpinning to mathematics itself, and I think you have rather misunderstood the view of Penrose. Lennox does not have a great track record in this - his own offering "God's Undertaker" is a deeply flawed work, whether you approach it scientifically or more generally ("philosophically" if you like). However, you get the impression that he knows this, and he is being devious, rather than simply dim. Once again, I think you do need to use the word "critique" in a more correct sense. I am not entirely sure what field Alvin Plantinga (returning to him again) is supposed to have expertise in that makes him more able to comment on the existence or otherwise of the gods than, say, my postman. What matters is not the "authorities" but the *arguments*, and it actually matters not one whit who Paul Davies or John Lennox or Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens are - what matters is their arguments, and those of the theists are flawed.
Dawkins has, for example, acknowledged that a deistic god is a possibility (no more than that) for many years - long before Davies entered the fray. That's neither here nor there; the key philosophical question that you should think about is this: if the universe never existed, what would be the value of Pi? Would that question have any meaning? I suggest that it very much does, and that gods are unnecessary to underpin mathematics. Indeed, they are unnecessary for *everything*, and quite completely cancel out of the equation.

[The Slicer]

Shane, Slicer readily acknowledges he hasn't dug into exactly what Penrose's position on this is, and would be obliged if you would set it out clearly for him, since you have stated that Slicer has misunderstood it. He is keen to learn. Contrary to what you have suggested, he is not arguing (in logical terms) that there NEEDS to be something underpinning maths, any more than (in the same terms) there NEEDS to be something or someone underlying evolution - so whether or not it would be hard to argue is a moot point.

Slicer can agree with you that (in rationalist terms) it is the argument that counts rather than the individual making it. So, if we're going to confine ourselves to rationalism, in order to make your case he considers that you need to lay out the points of the argument rather than make unsupported assertions (eg that philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists recognised by their peers as high achievers in their disciplines, who also hold to a theist position, are naive and stupid enough to believe in 'magic space pixies' - an approach that is all-too-often is present in threads on many aggressively atheistic posts and comment threads).

You are mistaking/incorrectly suggesting that Slicer's motivation for mentioning credentials was to advance the argument, when of course it wasn't - it was to counter your suggestion that only a crazy person would hold theist views, such as the Christian notion that everything has its origin in God - including love and logic. Mathematics being a robust logical discipline, Slicer was merely citing some credible individuals to highlight that being rather good at maths, or at philosophy (as assessed by peers in the discipline, rather than by you), is not inconsistent with a theist position. Your topic shift, from the maths credibility issue to judging Lennox's arguments beyond maths, did not go unnoticed, and would be another discussion entirely. All that notwithstanding, Slicer recognises that, even when they're within field, an independently thinking person may not be persuaded to these individuals' position by argument. That, however, is quite different from their argument being at odds with reason, or them being naive or devious. [see following for continuation]

[The Slicer]

[continued from previous]

Re Pi.
No doubt those who are academic mathematicians could answer the Pi thing better than Slicer. His humble non-mathematician's answer is, he suspects, ironically close to a suggestion you have made previously elsewhere - Pi (or Maths) is God. I believe you asked the question better previously (as "Can God change Pi?) - this time around you're inviting imagination and speculation (how something would be IF the universe we know, and everything associated with it, didn't exist). What value is Pi in a 4th spatial dimension or a 10th? How does a 10 dimensional circle look? Slicer doesn't know but presumably Pi will tell you, Shane (see what Slicer did there? ;-)).

For Slicer, God is Pi but Pi =/= God. God is maths, including its values and the relationship of its variables, and He is also love, patience, creativity and a whole lot more. Before you try to claim this is a cop-out, Slicer would point out that the problem is actually with your underlying assumptions. Whilst Plantinga may have his weaknesses when he gets into biology, Slicer considers that his argument when he's on home turf on logic, and its compatibility with an omnipotent God, has not been refuted. In fact it is itself a refutation of Mackie's & Hume's allegations concerning God's omnipotence - which is what you are attempting to challenge in your question 'Can God change Pi?' Slicer confesses he doesn't know whether or not God can change Pi (and remain true to himself) - but, applying Plantinga's argument, even if God is unable to change Pi (eg if logic requires it to be what it is), it NEED not be at odds with a proper understanding of omnipotence - rather than a schoolyard understanding of it. As Plantinga points out, whilst some theists (eg Martin Luther & Descartes) have considered God unconstrained by logic, most theologians and theistic philosophers who hold that God is omnipotent do not hold that He can create round squares (which seems pertinent to Pi), or bring it about that He both exists and does not exist. If God by his nature is logical, then this aspect of his character precludes him bringing about illogical states of affairs. This is perhaps analogous to his love defining his justice.

[Shanemuk]

Too much soap to go into there on my iPhone, but te Plantinga, you put a lot of store by the opinions of his peers, but that is hardly relevant; it doesn't matter if he's been voted the best Hillbilly in the whole durn Appalachians by the world congress of hillbillies. It's the argument, and most philosophers regard his arguments for god as being deeply flawed. As are yours of course. More on that anon. You can't complain about me wheeling out Lennox when you wheel out Penrose or Davies - just sayin'. :-)

[The Slicer]

Yep... just sayin' (assertions, but not setting out the argument - and more caricaturisation)

[Shanemuk]

Hmmm. For some reason my response didn't go through. Slicer has saddled himself with some pretty darned hefty metaphysical baggage and I really don't think he has the puff to take it anywhere near the hill, never mind up it. As for caricatures, pots should not really call kettles black, so we can leave that there.
Let's have a think about Slicer's previous post, and why I called it soap. He says that logic is part of god's nature. However he knows that he cannot even remotely then say that logic is based on god, because we have to be able to see logic outside god to be able to retro-apply it to god. We don't need god to underpin Pi, for example, because Pi underpins itself. The core problem is that Slicer's idea of god is simply incoherent. But lest Slicer feel isolated in clinging to this philosophically banjaxed concept, he is in good company, for none other than Alvin Plantinga has covered himself in unglory with his attempted construction of an ontological argument for the existence of god, which suffers from a parallel but similar incoherence. The problem with Slicer's argument here is that it is simply wordplay, and does not contain any substance.

[The Slicer]

For a minute there, Slicer thought he was going to see a case argued but it turns out no... just more assertion, allegation, name-calling and misdirection. Plantinga's (or anybody else's) ontological argument has as much to do with this as with the price of milk.

So here are a couple of pointers (some of which Slicer has given already, but which haven't been picked up):
1. Why does logic HAVE to be 'outside' of God rather than have its source in him? 'Because I say so' doesn't cut it. Your ASSERTION that logic has to be primary/foundational is no more demonstrable by logic than Slicer's that God is foundational. Slicer has already STATED that "he is not arguing (in logical terms) that there NEEDS to be something underpinning maths" (which includes Pi last time he checked). He's not trying to DEMONSTRATE that God exists by logic - so he can't be accused of offering an ontological argument. He's merely pointing out that you having your, different, foundational assumption is not a superior intellectual position from which to look down, poo-poo or throw impotent missiles (smoke bombs) such as unsubstantiated accusations of "incoherent," "philosophically banjaxed," "soap," "wordplay."
2. What is the relationship between the diameter of a 10 dimensional circle and its diameter?
3. Prof Frank Tipler (cosmologist & mathematical physicist at Tulane University, whose paper I provided a link for above, and on which your response was "dunno"), doesn't think mathematics requires the non-existence of God. Where has he gone wrong in what he outlines in that published paper? Don't let yourself be distracted by his views on biology (which Slicer doesn't share either) - just stick to the maths since that seems to be the basis of your 'argument' - but Slicer accepts he could be wrong since the basis for your assertions is still not explicit. He's also keen to know whether Francis Collins, John Barrow, Polkinghorne, Wigner, Edgar Andrews have all made the same mathematical errors, or whether you've spotted that they've each made different mistakes in their respective homeworks. However, from what you're saying they must have all missed the important point about Pi that you've spotted....

Slicer admits his own understanding of mathematics is no more advanced than schoolboy maths, and he's no doubt forgotten some of that, but clearly you're operating at a much higher level, as you've been able to spot the mistakes of all these clever chaps.
If you like, (as a bonus) you could also clarify what is Penrose's position, since you asserted Slicer had misunderstood it (tho' this is peripheral to the point Slicer has made).

[Shanemuk]

Slicer appears to be getting his knickers in a complex 10-dimensional knot for some reason, and accusing Shanemuk of saying things that Shanemuk has not said. Shanemuk throws the occasional Plantingism in to illustrate why he finds that gentleman to be a bit of a twit, perhaps in the same sort of fashion as Slicer seems happy to treat Dawkins. Sauce for goose and all that.
And speaking of goose, Shanemuk is happy to move on to the logic business, because he perceives that Slicer has not understood the foregoing. Here is the problem. Slicer suggests that "god" incorporates logic as part of its structure. This is just an assertion Slicer appears to have pulled out of his arse, and has no more justification to back it up than that. However, Shanemuk wishes to point out that this does not help if this goddy thing is supposed to act as a foundation and guarantor of such logic, because how then is Slicer able to recognise this "god" acting logically or illogically? How is our old pal Plantinga able to say that god doesn't act illogically, say by creating square circles (not the best example, but Shanemuk kindly recycles Slicer's off-cuts), when the logic that is supposed to be part of the nature of this "god" is allegedly underpinned by the same "god"? This is the reason Shanemuk finds Slicer's effort above to be incoherent, and thus it remains.
It would appear therefore to be encumbent upon Slicer to unpick this one a bit and explain why, for example, it would have been logically impossible for this "god" to set Pi to be equal to 3, which would have made mathematics a lot easier. Shanemuk thinks that Slicer realises that this would be silly, and since "god" can't be silly (Shanemuk would dispute this, and cite the entire book of Leviticus as evidence), it's not really a runner. Shanemuk suggests that Slicer realises that Pi is more fundamental than "god", and god has no option but to accept it as a constraint. Because that, essentially, is what Slicer's re-hash of Plantinga's argument amounts to. Calvin (who does not stand in high regard with Shanemuk, but Slicer is aware of that) may have suggested that "god" can do whatever the hell he/she/it wants, unconstrained by logic; Slicer and Plantinga appear to accept that "god" is indeed constrained by maths and logic, but propose the fudge that this is just because it is in god's "nature"; Shanemuk reiterates that this assertion is baseless. Indeed, Shanemuk observes that Slicer has bitten off considerably more than he can comfortably chew, and wryly comments that this is a direct consequence of trying to maintain a worldview that reduces ad absurdum all by itself :-)

[The Slicer]

Slicer's undergarments are sitting quite comfortably and knotless, thanks - another distraction to deflect attention from the fact that Slicer's question regarding 10 dimensional circles remains unanswered. Slicer has already stated that he is not sufficiently versed in maths himself to answer the Pi question definitively but notes that Shanemuk has again avoided completely the fact that it doesn't seem to bother guys who understand maths at least as well as Shanemuk.

Slicer WONDERS if the reason Pi can't be 3, or something other than it is, is exactly the same reason why circles can't have straight sides (like squares...). It seems to Slicer that the relationship between (i) Pi being what it is and (ii) circles (in 2 dimensions anyway), is a... er... circular argument. One of the things which makes a circle a circle is that it possesses a relationship between its circumference and its diameter with a constant equal to the value of Pi as it is.... so if Pi was anything else, Slicer imagines it wouldn't be a circle... Whether that's correct or not, why would God want to make maths any easier for you?.... it's not as tho' the sums are too difficult for him, and challenges are good for you.... ;-) Why is there a constant called Pi at all, or indeed any other mathematical constant? Why is there mathematical order?

As you should know well, Slicer isn't claiming that God being foundational isn't an assertion. Of course it is - it's Christian dogma/revelation, and Slicer doesn't claim that it's provable by logic/maths. Slicer's point (which you keep ignoring) is that you're not any better off. Tho' you seem to claim an evidence base for non-belief, or a logic base for it, or both, from which you chuck your accusations, you have neither evidence base nor logic base. [continued...]

[The Slicer]

If the fundamental assumption/assertion/dogma is that God creates from his nature, and man (and to some extent the rest of creation) is gifted with characteristics that have their origins in God, then the mechanism by which man might be "able to recognise God acting logically" (or theoretically illogically) is because he has been gifted with the characteristic. Slicer infers that Collins deems the consistency and reliability of maths to be because it is God's language, and that it permeates the cosmos. Whether man has mastery of it in the same measure as God is another matter entirely....

Shanemuk has no way of demonstrating that logic/maths HAS to be independent of God, unless Shanemuk chooses to define logic/maths as such (fundamental assertion/assumption). Slicer looks forward to Shanemuk demonstrating that such a definition is correct from first, or foundational, principles. He also looks forward to Shanemuk demonstrating the mathematical errors that Barrow, Polkinghorne, Tipler, Collins & Andrews have made in reaching the conclusions that they have. See if you can break your habit, and avoid all the pejorative terminology, and keep yourself just to providing the evidence/logic base that you claim you have.

[Shanemuk]

The Slicer continues this poisoning the well nonsense instead of engaging with the points Shanemuk has raised. It is a rhetorical technique as old as time, beloved by the intellectually lame, to accuse the opponent of resorting to insults, then fold the arms and attempt to claim the moral high ground. Shanemuk suggests that Slicer has already shot this pooch with his silly jibes at Dawkins, so should tackle the argument instead of adopting the tired role of Mrs Prissy-Knickers.
Slicer continues to simply assert that "god" has logic and underpins logic. It is nit for Shanemuk to logically smack this down when Slicer has not set put a coherent case. Indeed that is Shanemuk's point -Slicer is waffling. There is no content there. 10D is irrelevant - Pi is Pi in 10D, 2D, 3D. There is one TRUE answer to the 60th decimal digit of Pi, and thus is the case whether we posit a god or not. Slicer has failed to appreciate this. Slicer mumbles meaningless panentheistic cobblers and expects Shanemuk to somehow make a silk purse from this vacuous sow's ear. Shanemuk respectfully suggests that Slicer spell out exactly what he means by this business of god being both dependent on logic and at the same time defining it. Shanemuk also observes that Slicer has midunderstood his reaction to the Tipler paper, but that is for later.

[The Slicer]

Slicer has most certainly not attempted at any point in this discussion to claim moral high ground. Slicer merely suggested that what little rational argument was being laid out by shanemuk was being obscured by the frequent use of pejorative language. Slicer hasn’t even been trying to claim intellectual high ground – he merely rejects shanemuk’s constant claim that atheism sits on higher intellectual/rational ground than theism. Slicer has addressed the issues raised by shanemuk, and will again here (below), but Slicer considers that shanemuk hasn’t delivered a coherent explanation for why maths/logic should be foundational, tho’ he has shrouded the inadequacy of the response in more pejorative terminology (“poisoning the well nonsense,” “intellectually lame,” “Mrs Prissy-Knickers,” “meaningless panentheistic cobblers,” “vacuous sow’s ear”). Not much room left in 2 short paragraphs for content. Slicer presumes that when shanemuk is writing a genetics paper for a journal he can do so with proper content and without this kind of fanciful decoration, and Slicer is left wondering why shanemuk seems incapable of doing it here.

Given some of the twitter feed displayed on Shanemuk’s website, Slicer is beginning to wonder if shanemuk really doesn’t follow the point, or is pretending not to. At no stage (despite what has been fed on Twitter, presented on shanemuk’s own blog) has Slicer attempted to argue “maths is God, [wibble] ergo Jesus.” If, despite what Slicer has stated clearly in this thread, shanemuk feels that’s accurate of Slicer's comments, then Slicer despairs that Shanemuk is either incapable of understanding or committed to not understanding/misrepresentation. The same applies to shamemuk’s most recent suggestion (here) that Slicer has stated that God was ‘dependent on logic.’

However, Slicer hasn’t reached firm conclusions on the matter of shanemuk’s incapability/commitment to misrepresentation, and still hopes to see evidence to the contrary – so he’ll present his position once more, as requested.

[The Slicer]

To restate:
1. (a) Slicer’s fundamental assumptions/assertions (on the basis of a route independent of logic/scientific method AND CURRENTLY NOT AMENABLE TO TESTING BY THE LATTER) are:
(i) that God exists and has certain defining characteristics, (ii) that He created and sustains the cosmos and everything in it, and (iii) that it and we, particularly, bear hallmarks of his character.

(b) Building upon these assertions (WHICH PRESENTLY CAN NEITHER BE PROVEN NOR REFUTED IN OBJECTIVE TERMS), it is reasonable to perceive order as one example of the hallmarks of his character.

(c) Mathematics and its success as a tool, and logic, both seem to Slicer to meet the requirements for examples of ‘order.’ Man’s unique (to date anyway) understanding of mathematics fits with the Christian understanding of being made ‘in the image’ of God (as do some other characteristics).

(d) It does not follow from this that God is ‘dependent on logic' or maths, any more than he is dependent on any other part of the created order which bears hallmarks of his character. God being constrained by his character is arguably an attribute of personhood, but need not imply dependence, other than self-dependence. Plantinga’s argument is that God is logical by character and thus constrained by this aspect of his character. You may be constrained by your character to pay your taxes, but would you see that trait as rendering you dependent upon the act of paying your taxes (especially if there was no-one to penalize you for not doing so)?

[The Slicer]

Slicer doesn’t claim that this is a correct/definitive description (he thinks God is by nature quite a bit beyond his understanding) but that this level of understanding is sufficient for the present; nor does he claim it is an inevitable logical conclusion, i.e. he is NOT saying “ergo” God (because, unlike shanemuk, he has acknowledged underlying assumptions/assertions); Slicer merely states that, in the absence of data to demonstrate the lack of validity of the underlying assertions, it is not illogical or stupid.

Slicer also stated clearly that he did not know the answer to what a 10 dimensional circle looks like, and asked (rather than pronounced upon) whether Pi would have the same value in 10 dimensional space as in 2D. He wonders why, if Shane knew the answer himself, he took so long to answer it... He does, however, marvel that Shanemuk has spotted something so important in terms of threatening the existence/omnipotence of God – something which multiple theist physicists and mathematicians at the top of their field missed, despite it being so elementary. If it is such ground-breaking finding, and a deal-breaker for the existence of an omnipotent God, there’s gotta be a scientific publication in there for Shanemuk, if not a Nobel prize.

[The Slicer]

2. (a) Shanemuk has at least one of the following as a fundamental assumption/assertion (on the basis of what someone else has proposed, or he has come up with it all by himself, but CURRENTLY NOT AMENABLE TO TESTING BY THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD): (i) there is nothing beyond the material, (ii) Maths/logic is the basis for the cosmos

(b) Building upon these assumptions/assertions (WHICH PRESENTLY CAN BE NEITHER PROVEN NOR REFUTED IN OBJECTIVE TERMS) it IS reasonable for shanemuk to perceive:
from (i)
o methods which we have developed to assess the material world (and which have already uncovered so much of how it developed and works) can tell us all we need to know about what exists and what doesn’t
o there is no material evidence to prove the existence of a god or gods
o ergo God or gods do not exist

(c) from (ii), if (ii) is foundational for shanemuk
o if a god existed he/she/it would have to be subject to ‘objective’ assessment (eg by man) using logic

If (ii) is not a foundational assertion for shanemuk, it seems illogical to arrive at conclusion (c).
If (i) is not foundational for Shanemuk, he is obliged to explain his basis for concluding it.

What is NOT evident as being reasonable is to ignore the question of where the presence and “unreasonable usefulness” of maths came from.

[The Slicer]

SLICER’S POINT (AGAIN) IS THAT SHANEMUK’S FOUNDATION IS NO MORE DEMONSTRABLE IN THE PRESENT TO BE VALID THAN SLICER’S, AND THEREFORE IS NO BASIS FOR CLAIMING HIGHER RATIONAL GROUND, OR DEEMING THOSE WHO HOLD A THEIST POSITION TO BE STUPID OR NAÏVE.

For the record, despite Shanemuk’s suggestion to the contrary, Slicer has not at any stage suggested/treated Richard Dawkins as being “a twit,” or stupid, or naïve. In the main post he does get a mention (it hardly qualifies as insult), and Slicer figures it’s sauce for the goose (to recycle one of shanemuks “cut-offs”). He has, after all, mocked belief in God as being akin to belief in a flying spaghetti monster. Slicer has merely recycled his imagery. Slicer agrees with Martin Rees and Terry Eagleton that Dawkins has over-reached, but Slicer has acknowledged that some theists have too.

The physics of the last century demonstrates that, whilst pursuing foundational elements, it is wise not to conclude prematurely that what we currently think is foundational is foundational. Perhaps that’s why some highly talented mathematicians (including non-theists like Penrose) are of the opinion that there has to be an underlying explanation for maths and its power. Slicer recognizes that that is a long way from theism or even deism, but it undermines one of Shanemuk’s key assertions.

Finally, Slicer is amazed that shanemuk’s reponse to Tipler’s paper - “dunno” - is open to misinterpretation.

[Shanemuk]

Slicer needs to wise up and actually read what I am saying. I'm actually fine with insults; it is just hypocrisy to get all prissy over me slagging off people like Plantinga - and hey, you've brought another ejjit, Eagleton, into the mix - for stepping well beyond *their* fields of knowledge. I am not claiming anything as a priori foundational - I am however claiming that if you want to derive reliable knowledge about anything, you need, as a method, to use evidence, and to use it systematically and rationally. What you are suggesting is my presupposition is nothing of the sort.

I have a perfectly open mind on the topic of whether the universe was poofed into being by pixies, but you will acknowledge (indeed, you have already) that there is no *evidence* for this. Your presuppositions (and in this case the term is accurate) include the immanence of some panentheistic entity, and that's how you structure your metaphysics - no bother. But you haven't made an argument for this, much less produced any evidence, so I'm not exactly sure why I should pay that much attention.

[The Slicer]

You do not have a "perfectly open mind" (although I accept that maybe you think you have); your last statement demonstrates a foundational assumption/pre-supposition:
that man's reason and logic is the only reliable means to derive reliable knowledge about anything, and its intimate relationship with systematic methodology dependent upon evidence.
This effectively excludes faith/revelation by other routes as a possibility from the outset; and substitutes worship of God with worship of (man's) reason.

Reason is a powerful tool, and revelatory route - no doubt - but Slicer contends that we have other tools in the toolbox too, which do not preclude the use of the reason tool for many appropriate purposes. Furthermore these other tools are not restricted to those who have lived since "the Enlightenment" or the small minority who have real prowess in a particular field of science or maths.

Your final comment, that Slicer has not provided any evidence to demonstrate the existence of God, has no added value to this discussion since Slicer has already made the point himself. Nevertheless, it seems that shanemuk can't stop himself from paying much attention. Slicer would cite as "evidence" shanemuk's very active participation on this and other posts...

[Shanemuk]

Twaddle, dear boy. My reasons for excluding "faith" and "revelation" is because these sources are indistinguishable from brainfart, and the source of multiple contradictory and demonstrably *wrong* statements about the universe. For example, as you agree, the faith of creationists is misplaced. The faith of Muslims is misplaced, as is the revelation to Muhammad. And I could go on and on and on and on. Of course you would counter that *your* special wee faith and revelation are correct, and you would perhaps say that just because all these other johnnies are wrong, that doesn't mean *you're* wrong. But they would all argue the same thing, which puts us right back to evidence again. So you do not escape that easily. The kicker is that even if you are technically *correct* in your statements, you have no basis for believing them other than brain-fart, and are in no position to challenge anyone else.

You say that I substitute worship of god with worship of (man's) reason. I would suggest that you *don't* worship god - you worship your rationalisations for getting around dealing with the counter-argument. You worship the *idea* of a god, without any way of getting from that to your referent.

So it's not just that you haven't provided evidence - you have provided nothing but sophistry. As for why I come back here, well, I feel sorry for you. We bloggers-whom-no-one-ever-reads have to stick together ;-)

[The Slicer]

Slicer is touched by your compassion but wouldn't want you wasting your time feeling sorry for him. Still, your argument remains circular (as does Slicer's but at least Slicer has acknowledged that). Caricaturing all faith positions as "brainfarts" does not exclude your own position - of elevating reason to be cure-all/ultimate determinant of truth/uncaused cause - from the same caricature. Yet again, Slicer wonders why you have to use perjorative terminology in the course of assertions - the practice suggests that your argument is not sufficient of itself.

Slicer agrees with you that there are many mutually exclusive worldviews and that it is tempting to conclude that because many others are wrong that all must be wrong. However, since your position (of the all-sufficiency of (man's) reason) is an undemonstrable pre-supposition/foundational assumption too, it cannot exclude itself from the same charge.

shanemuk also makes the opposite mistake of including Slicer's blog in the same category as shanemuk says he finds his own - a blog no-one reads ;-)

Slicer is quite happy with his hit rate (tho' there's always room for more), even if he'd welcome more sign-ups to Typepad so that more visitors could leave comments/follow.