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LHC Forces Bookmaker To Lower Odds On the Existence of GodComments:457
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Nov 06, 2008 02:59 AM
from the god-particle dept.
from the god-particle dept.
A UK bookmaker has lowered the odds on proving that god exists to just 4-1 to coincide with the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider. The chance that physicists might discover the elusive sub-atomic object called the "God particle" has forced the odds lower. Initially the odds that proof would be found of God's existence were 20-1, and they lengthened to 33-1 when the multi-billion pound atom smasher was shut down temporarily because of a magnetic failure. A spokesman for Paddy Power said, "The atheists' planned advertising campaign seems to have renewed the debate in pubs and around office water-coolers as to whether there is a God and we've seen some of that being transferred into bets. However we advise anyone still not sure of God's existence to maybe hedge their bets for now, just in case." He added that confirmation of God's existence would have to be verified by scientists and given by an independent authority before any payouts were made. Everyone getting a payout is encouraged to tithe at least ten percent.
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Hahaha (Score:5, Funny)
Scientists being required as part of the proof to earn the payout that God exists? Damn, bookies sure do know how to make it a safe bet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Science can't prove that god exists, or that it doesn't exist. So it's a perfectly safe bet- it can never be won.
Re:Hahaha (Score:4, Insightful)
Paddy Power [paddypower.com] is just looking for one with omnipresence.
Would this be outside the realm of science?
Proving God sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
One with omnipresence would be easy to prove. What would be accepted as proof of God ? There are more than enough structures in space that are omnipresent ... The gravity field of, well, anything, is by definition omnipresent (even though it's not so at every last moment in time, it's just everywhere any human will ever go, or even any photon that will ever touch a human). The laws of nature are omnipresent and eternal. Force carrying particle fields are omnipresent and eternal, ... If you only need a "mechanical" God, the bet is won already.
These fields are "capable of doing anything that's possible" since they actually DO anything that happens (if you push someone down the stairs, these fields are the "thing" that actually create the force on your victims body causing him to start to fall). And they are omnipresent, omnipotent and eternal.
So that bet would be won by just looking up in a physics book, and pointing out that such structures exist.
You can't prove that there is or is not an omnipresent omnipotent entity that can choose whether to act or not : the basic demand of an experiment would be that it would have to be repeateable. Since presumably this entity would tire of those experiments and would stop responding, any experiment that "proves" the existence of God would stop doing so after a while. When God parted the sea in the exodus, that could be said to prove his existence, however, the next day there is no proof left, and anybody could correctly claim that there is no proof God exists.
This is an unsolveable problem : let's assume some idiots' dream comes true today : Jesus comes down from heaven, beats the crap out of every existing army by waiving his hand, throws all muslims and all other unsavory individuals into hell, and builds a final country where he is king and everything is happy.
Would that prove the existence of God ? Well no. There are problems :
Since that would not be accepted as proof, what exactly do you suggest WOULD prove (and be repeateable) that God exists ?
The problem is that the basis of religious dogma, namely that there are eternal, unchangeable and unchallengeable laws that must be obeyed, or dire consequences will follow, is a basic assumption of science. Without that as a given, not a single experiment would be doable, nor would it prove anything.
But you can disprove specific religions :
The problem of doing this with the bible is that it hardly makes any direct claim at all. Sure it claims that allowing murder will have dire
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Erm, I really don't have time to read it all but...
"The laws of nature are omnipresent and eternal."
Where did you hear that fairytale? There is no such thing as laws of nature. Every so called law of nature is mankinds attempt to put the things mankind perceives into understandable terms. But all we have are theories. And as long as we haven't seen all there is to see of nature and the universe, they remain just theories.
Just because every time someone let go of a ball it dropped towards the earth doesn't mean this has suddenly become a law. Ever think that perhaps our perception of gravity is rather limited?
Laws of Nature do exist (Score:3, Insightful)
"There is no such thing as laws of nature. Every so called law of nature is mankinds attempt to put the things mankind perceives into understandable terms."
Just because our efforts to codify the laws of nature are not yet perfect does not mean that there are no laws of nature. If we follow your logic then nothing exists because all we observe is just our senses turning what they perceive into understandable terms.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You make the mistake of thinking that by "disproving" some bit of dogma or scripture that you disprove "certain religions".
Religion was designed to defy proof or disproof. If you ask why a perfect God would cause a newborn infant to die of sepsis, you are told "He works in mysterious ways" or "His ways are not our ways". It's the ultimate dodge.
"The existence of God" has no objective validity, and is therefore meaningless.
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
The universe does not need a god to exist, nothing that happens in the universe required a god to make it happen, and nothing that I do requires a god to tell me whether or not it is good or bad. Saying 'I don't understand this, therefore therefore a god did it' is not a valid argument. It's like saying 'I don't know what made those lights in the sky, therefore it's an alien spacecraft'. No it doesn't, all it means is you don't know.
I find it quite humorous that religious people cannot accept that on a billions of worlds for billions of years, that a certain type of randomness caused life to arise. (Any life, btw, not this specific one. Using statistics to show this life is highly unlikely is an improper use of statistics. And it's not totally random chance, creationists claiming this have never bothered to study evolution theory and understand it.) But they are willing to believe in an all knowing, all seeing entity that has created this entire universe of unimaginable size, stuck us in a non-descript corner that is completely insignificant, all by ourselves, and is interested in our daily activities and our souls. Yet this same all-knowing, all-powerful entity can't come up with a decent communication skill to prove that it exists so we stop killing ourselves over which is the right belief. It either doesn't exist, or doesn't care. Or our belief is irrelevant. Which means it is irrelevant.
Once it was shown there was no need for the 'ether' to support radio waves, ether no longer existed. It wasn't necessary to prove ether didn't exist, only to show there was no need for it, and the non-existence of ether made more sense.
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually the problem with proving God exists or does not exist with science is that you need to compare something created by God to something not created by God, examine the difference, and the difference will be God.
If God exists, all things are created by God, and there is no difference between the two objects. If God does not exist, neither object was created by God and there is no difference between the two objects.
Either way, you have no observable difference between the two objects.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Omnipotence is problematic. The famous example is "Is it possible for an omnipotent creature to create a rock so heavy that he can not lift it?". Both answers would mean he's not omnipotent. So that makes all such religions look.. well.. PLAIN STUPID.
Really, even if there was a God, and there's about as much evidence supporting that as there is of the existance of the unicorn, I would not bow to him. In fact, I would tell him to fuck off, and leave me alone. Really, I would hate to spend my life worshippin
The "big rock" paradox is nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a silly argument. The response of C.S. Lewis was that omnipotence does not mean "ability to do things that are inherently impossible." A square circle is a non-thing, therefore even an omnipotent God cannot make it. Nonsense doesn't become sense just because you insert the words 'God can'.
If something is logically possible, an omnipotent God could do it. And we may guess incorrectly about what's possible. But what you're doing is knocking down straw men. The God you're disproving is the one of childish belief.
Re:The "big rock" paradox is nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
What's 'inherently impossible' about either outcome of creating the 'big rock'? I can either 'create' a rock that's too heavy for me to lift, or my lifting abilities exceed my 'heavy rock creation' abilities. Both outcomes are perfectly possible - there are no logical contradictions.
What the paradox likely demonstrates is that the concept of 'omnipotence' as we typically understand the word is internally inconsistent.
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting post, and you bring up some really good discussion points.
"One with omnipresence would be easy to prove. What would be accepted as proof of God ? There are more than enough structures in space that are omnipresent ... The gravity field of, well, anything, is by definition omnipresent (even though it's not so at every last moment in time, it's just everywhere any human will ever go, or even any photon that will ever touch a human). The laws of nature are omnipresent and eternal. Force carrying particle fields are omnipresent and eternal, ... If you only need a "mechanical" God, the bet is won already."
One needs to be very careful when saying "prove" or any conjugation of the word. Unfortunately the main problem - one that many people, even scientists, ignore - is called the problem of induction (you can learn about it in any Philosophy 101 class), which says that one cannot prove something based on prior experiences (i.e. it's possible that you're prior experiences can lead you to the wrong conclusion). If you forget about the problem of induction, you may be a turkey (Every day, the turkey gets fed by the farmer, and grows to believe that the farmer is a good guy and is looking out for the turkey's best interest. Then one day, right around Thanksgiving ...). Science is based on faith that the laws of nature are omnipresent and universal (they might be), because if they aren't then science fails. It is possible that the laws of nature change on a nonlinear/discontinuous function that appears to be constant on the limited timescale of human existence, but changes dramatically -or even slightly - sometime in the future. It is also possible that if there is an omnipotent god, that He(she/it) might decide to change the laws of nature just to fuck with us.
There is a lot more I could say about the problem of induction, but entire books have been written on the subject, and I'm spent. So on to a new topic.
On Buddhism you say:
"you can check buddhism : since the world only exists as part of the mind of people, it is not possible for people to cause accidents due to "not knowing" something, since they know about the entire world. So dig a hold in the sidewalk, camouflage it, and if someone falls into it you're sure buddhism is wrong."
You are confusing buddhism with solipsism: the view that the existence of anything external to your own mind is questionable, at best. So, yes you can easily prove solipsism wrong.
Buddhists don't really believe in a god; in fact, there are many Buddhists who are practicing members of other religions as well. The four main beliefs of Buddhism are the following (from Wikipedia):
Re:Hahaha (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people when they talk about God have it all wrapped up with other issues, like the survival of consciousness after death, eternal reward or punishment, omnescience and omnipotence, and many others. They even have very specific definitions of those concepts in mind. For example, if they don't like the concept of God, they often assume that God, if 'He" exists, must know everything, even where knowing certain things simultaneously supposedly creates a paradox. They then point to that paradox as proof God doesn't exist. It becomes a definition problem - Is it still fair to call something God if it only knows as much as can be known, and there are things which simply can't be known? Should we refuse to call something God if it can't make a four sided triangle?
Ideas such as the soul, supernatural phenomena, gods, life after death, heaven, enlightenment, miracles, worship, omnipotence and so on, aren't monolithic. It's logically quite possible that one or more of these things could exist without the others existing at all. Whether you would want to define a being that was morally perfect, but didn't have unlimited power, as God, is a philosophical choice. (as is the reverse, a being that is morally flawed but has unlimited power). Linking all sorts of concepts together, and not defining some of those concepts, lets people engage in circular reasoning. That doesn't mean nobody has ever done better - plenty of people, both in various religions and in the great philosophies, have gone to great efforts to define terms, and avoid at least the most obvious errors.
Unfortunately 90% or more of the discussions on places such as Slashdot will be between people who haven't ever read anything by the people who have done better, and who think their latest point has never been proposed by anyone else before.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I spent years of my life, mostly from fifteen onwards, in a very intense study of God, morality, and I spent my time to the best of my ability trying to improve myself to help lead others to God. While trying to find these "proofs" of God I concluded there was no God. Having lost my faith at twenty it came with no little trauma. I do not, however, believe that people who have studied the concept of "God" less than me are able to rationally conclude there is no God.
I would not say that someone who only
Re:Hahaha (Score:5, Informative)
Uh ... what?
They certainly CAN prove that God exists ... if he really does. It would be a rather simple matter. A big bearded guy in a white robe would come strolling into the main research lab of the LHC, wave his hand in the air, and atomize 99% of the scientists in the room. The remaining 1% would then say "Eureka! We have evidence of God's existence!", and then the Paddy Power people would expediently relocate to Mexico as armed mobs stormed their offices.
It's the other bit of your proposition that's rather difficult to handle. Disproving the existence of God is still possible, in theory. Unfortunately, in practice, you can never totally disprove an irrational belief because those who hold it can always change the details in order to get around the evidence. That's why, over time, we've gone from a Pantheon of Gods who controlled pretty much every event in our lives, to a single God who seems to never do much of anything. Over the last few millenia we've chipped away at God's domain until almost nothing remains, and yet at every step of the way the "faithful" of the world have simply modified their definition of God, and then carried on inanely insisting that their current definition is 100% true.
So no, we can't "prove" that God doesn't exist for the same reason that you'll never convince some people that Homeopathy is garbage, or that Psychics are a bunch of jackals and scam-artists. However, for all practical purposes, we've been disproving his/her/their existence for centuries. You just have to be open-minded enough to actually look at the evidence.
Re:Hahaha (Score:5, Informative)
Your example is not proof that God exists. How do we know that this beardy man in a white robe is not merely a psychotic alien with a destructor ray?
God _can_ be proven if it exists (Score:2)
Uhm, wrong. If a god exists and does something -- ie, not necessarily omnipotent but with any potency at all -- his existence can be found out. You cannot prove only god's inexistence, or, the presence of a god who set up the universe in motion but doesn't touch it anymore. That type of a god can matter as he can just silently wait outside for souls who leave the universe, but there's absolutely no way to find out he does exist.
Our inability to prove the existence of a meddling god doesn't mean he does n
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Praying to God for something physically impossible, and then for it to happen. If the sun stopped in the sky if, and only if, the Pope and 100,000 people prayed for it, that would be pretty convincing. A God who existed, and intervened regularly, would be easy to prove. It is the non-existence of God that cannot be prove: there can always be some chink of the Universe where you have not looked.
Independent verification (Score:4, Insightful)
Bizarro perhaps?
Re: (Score:2)
In other words a theist and an atheist would expect this bet to be a pretty sure loser. Who is making these bets?
A particle? (Score:5, Funny)
Surely God would be something a bit bigger than a particle.
I'm confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You are clearly confused. As per recent scientific theory God is a being comprised entirely of Higgs Boson, though his corporeal manifestations often are comprised of starch, marinara, and meat. If the Higgs Boson can be proven, then we may finally be able to start studying the ability of this "God Particle" to transmogrify into an Italian dish comprised of noodles, tomato sauce, and beef.
Re:I'm confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
this is so incredibly inane it doesn't even deserve to be on Idle.
Are you new around here? It's exactly inane enough to be on idle.
All this proves is that Paddy Power know how to use science to pull a publicity stunt.
Re: (Score:2)
But then, proof that a proof is proof ... (Score:3, Informative)
At least, that was the case in pre-modern times.
CC.
while i'm glad (Score:5, Interesting)
the LHC has captured the public's imagination, calling the elusive particle in question the "god particle" is obviously just a flowery turn of phrase
unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon your point of view, it has apparently devolved/ evolved into a powerful public relations gimmick
personally, i feel that you want the general public engaged in science, any way you can, even if that involves purposeful misconceptions or blowing things out of proportion. sometimes you need cheap gimmicks to captures people's attentions, and really, what's wrong with that? who cares how you get them in the door, as long as they get in the door
get the general public interested and engaged in scientific questions which aren't even remotely tangentially related to their lives, because for every 10 people who get the wrong idea, and start making bets on silly things like proving the existence of god, as if that could ever be actually settled with a science experiment, there is an eleventh person, perhaps a 13 year old kid, who's imagination is sparked by wonder at the larger concepts in play
sometimes its hard to tell the difference between a misconceived turn of the phrase and a genuine attempt at drawing a larger and deeper inference and connection in a subject matter. who am i, or any of us, to throw cold water on the idea of a god particle? isn't discovering the deeper mechanisms of how our natural world works poetically or literally akin to touching the mind of god, whatever the poetic idea of the "the mind of god" might mean to you, atheist, or religious?
so let the god particle be particle physics' new public relations ambassador. and for those of you who are so literal as to be mediocre: don't poo poo the god particle. milk it for all it is worth. beacuse that 13 year old kid might be the next niels bohr
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
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I can't believe that it's been 10 years and you still post with no capital letters. :)
Pascal's Wager (Score:5, Insightful)
It's cute enough as a philosophical experiment, but the typical layman interpretation of it is just plain idiotic.
Re:Pascal's Wager (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the devil secretly killed god and took over the holy land (unholy land). And now he tortures all the catholics that pass away. Of course allowing all the atheists to go free. I call it the fuck you pascal wager. In my philosophy class i was the only one to notice the horrible fault in logic, it was depressing (only 1 person in the class was even religious anyways). Also this was touched on in the southpark movie:
.
Hell Director: Hello, newcomers and welcome. Can everybody hear me? Hello?
[taps microphone]
Hell Director: Can everybody... ok. Um, I am the Hell Director. Uh, it looks like we have 8,615 of you newbies today. And for those of you who were little confused: uh, you are dead; and this is Hell. So abbandon all hope and yadda-yadda-yadda. Uh, we are now going to start the orientation PROcess which will last about...
Protestant: Hey, wait a minute. I shouldn't be here, I was a totally strick and devout Protestant. I thought we went to heaven.
Hell Director: Yes, well, I'm afraid you are wrong.
Soldier: I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness.
Hell Director: Uh, you picked the wrong religion as well.
Man from Crowd: Well who was right? Who gets in to Heaven?
Hell Director: I'm afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons were the correct answer.
The Damned: Awwww...
Re: (Score:2)
Pascal was one of the very early researchers into probability, and his wager was set up as a model probabilistic situation simple enough to be studied, in a field that was just beginning. When Pascal created it, phrases such as "non-zero probability" didn't exist yet, and wouldn't until people had reasoned about Pascal's wager, and thousands of other word problems, enough to see a need for such phrases. It's thus not very applicable to the real world, just a tool for teaching some very basic parts of probab
UK? (Score:5, Informative)
33/1 ? 4/1 ? (Score:2)
At the sports book, (Score:3, Funny)
The over/under on the Higgs boson's mass is +147 GeV.
How I wish Paddypower was a betting exhange... (Score:2)
...instead of a straight up bookie.
Scientific proof must emerge by 31st Dec 2009, to confirm his omnipresence in order for bets to be deemed winners.
I would sell my house and bet it all against this, that would be the easiest 25% sucker money ever.
Nothing good will come from this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Chances are, the only time we'll find out for certain is when we die. We'll wake up in heaven, hell, purgatory or whatever realm the dead go to, or... we won't. At that point, what does it matter?
Thing is, if I had a bit of spare cash to make it worthwhile, I'd place a bet on God's existence.
Re:Don't believe, just ask (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense. Most of the members here have never seen any evidence of real, live females, yet they believe in them through faith alone. You know what they say - everyone needs something to believe in :)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
To be fair we can using genetics/biology, a vast array of history, logic and obviously quantum physics to prove with a high degree of accuracy that women do in fact exist. And rest easy, no theoretical math was used at all (that stuff keeps me up at night ... i shouldnt be on at 4am but i had a nightmare about number theory).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No, it's not faith, we have pictures! :-) Lots of pictures. Mmmm boobies.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why are you on /. honestly? Blind faith is the antithesis of being a nerd. Aside from trolling is there any purpose at all for you to be here?
You don't participate in many of the programming threads, do you?
Re: (Score:2)
The Slashdot administration hereby promises to "get rid of Idle" as soon as the existence of God is empirically proven or disproven by Science.
-- TBD, self-appointed ambassador for the administrators of /.