God's Debris

A while ago I read a book called God's Debris by Scott Adams. The book was an interesting philosophical treatise that will try to rehash here in order to make my point. I will first reveal a personal bias that I do not believe in a single, omnipotent, omniscient God. With that said, I will move on.

The storyline is irrelevent, so I will go into the general points he made.

The author begins by trying to determine the motivation of God. He states that all religions that purport that God is omnipotent and omniscient have created a logical paradox, which he supports by saying that God would know the results of all actions he (I us a gender-specific term for lack of a better pronoun) took prior to taking them. Because of this, he would know the fate of all matter prior to creating it. He would know the entire fate of humanity and all life as well as the fate of all things within the universe. This creates two problems:

A) It eliminates the idea of free will. Therefore, in religions such as Christianity, humans would have no control over their own actions and would be held accountable for "sins" that they were condemned to perform since the creation of all matter.

B) It eliminates the motivation for God to create anything. If God had been able to see the consequences of all his actions prior to making them, why would he have created anything in the first place? It is redundant and pointless.

The only action, Adams says, that God could possible make that he could not predict the outcome of, was to kill himself. This, he says, would not provoke any foresight of an outcome, and therefore is the only plausible action that God would take. So, in an action that we term the Big Bang, Adams says, God killed himself.

Adams claims that this suicide resulted in the creation of the universe. The remains of God form the basis of all existence. He says that when God committed suicide, two basic things were produced:

A) God-Dust. If one is to break all matter into molecules, all molecules into atoms, all atoms into protons and neutrons and electrons, and all of these into quarks and so on and so forth until one is left with an infinitely small particle of matter (which physically cannot exist but conceptually does exist), this is God-Dust.

B) Probability. In order to explain this, it is better to quote from the book itself:

"'Imagine that everything in existence disappears and then reappears. How much time expires while everything is gone?'
'How should I know? You're the one making up the example. How much?'
'No time pases. It can't because time as a human concept of how things change when compared to other things, so there is no time.'
'What if everything disappears except for me and my wristwatch?' I asked.
'Then you would experience the passing of time in relation to yourself and to your watch. And when the rest of the universe reappered you could check on how much time had passed according to your watch. But the people in the rest of the univers would have experienced no time while they were gone. To them, you instantly aged. Their time and your time were not the same because you experienced change and they did not. There is no universal time clock; time differs for every observer.
'Okay, I think I get that. But how is any of this going to answer my original question about gravity and what makes things move?'
'Have you ever seen a graph of something called a probability distribution?' he asked.
'Yes. It has a bunch of dots on it. The places with the most dots are where there's the greatest probability,' I said, pleased to remember something from my statistics classes.
'The universe looks a lot like a probability graph. The heaviest concentrations of dots are the galaxies and planets, where the force of gravity seems the strongest. But gravity is not a tugging force. Gravity is the result of probability.'
'You lost me.'
'Reality has a pulse, a rhythm, for lack of better words. God's dust disappears on one beat and reappears on the next in a new position based on probability. If a bit of God-dust disappears near a large mass, say a planet, then probability will cause it to pop back into existence nearer to the planet on the next beat. Probability is highest when you are near massive objects. Or to put it another way, mass is the physical expression of probability.'
'I think I understand that, sort of,' I lied.
'If you observed God-dust that was near the Earth it would look like it was being sucked toward the planet. But there is no movement across space in the sense that we understand it. The dust is continuously disappearing in one place and appearing in another, with each new location being nearer the Earth.'
'I prefer the current theory of gravity,' I said. 'Newton and Einstein had it pretty much figured out. The math works with their theories. I'm not so sure about yours.'
'The normal formulas for gravity work fine with my description of reality,' he replied. 'All I've done is add another level of understanding. Newton and Einstein gave us formulas for gravity, but neither man answered the question of why objects seem attracted to each otehr.'
'Einstein did explain it,' I said. 'Remember, we talked about that? He said space was warped by matter, so what looks like gravity is just objects following the path of warped space.'
The old man just looked at me.
'Okay,' I said. 'I admit I don't know what any of that means. It does sound like nonsense.'
'Einstein's language about bent space and my description of God-dust are nothing more than mental models. If they help us deal with our environment, they are useful. My description of gravity is easier to understand than Einstein's model. In that sense, mine is better.'
[irrelevent deleted] 'You haven't explained orbits. Under your theory, how could a moon orbit a planet and not be sucked into it? Your God-dust would pop into existence lcoser to the planet every time it appeared until it crashed into the surface.'
'You are ready for the second law of gravity.'
'I guess I am.'
'There is one other factor that influences the position of matter when it pops back into existence. That force is inertia, for lack of a better word. Although God-dust is unimaginably small, it has some probability of popping into existence exactly where another piece of God-dust exists. When that happens, one of the particles has to find a new location and alter its probability. To the observer, if one could see such tiny happenings, it looks like the particals collide and then change direction and speed. The new speed is determined by how far from its original spot the God-dust appears with each new beat of the universe. If each new location is far from the old spot, we perceive the object to be moving fast.'
He continued. 'So there is always the dual probability influencing each particle of God-dust. One probability makes all God-dust pop into existence nearer to other God-dust. The other probability is that the dust will appear along a straight line drawn from its past. All apparent motion in the universe is based on those competing probabilities.
'Earth's moon, for example, has a certain probability of coming toward the Earth and a certain probability of moving in a straight line. The two probabilities are, by chance, in balance. If gravity were a tugging force, the way we normally think of it, there would be some sort of friction, slowing the moon and eventually draggin it to Earth. But since gravity is nothing more than probability, there is no friction or tugging. The moon can orbit almost indefinitely because the position is determined by probability, not by tugging or pushing.'
'What if all the dust that makes up the moon doesn't reappear near its last position?' I asked. 'You said it's only a matter of probability where the dust reappears, so couldn't the moon suddenly vanish if all its dust disappeared and then appeared on the other side of the solar system?'
'Yes, it could. But the probability of that is ridiculously small.'
'The trouble with your theory,' I said, 'is that matter doesn't pop in and out of existence. Scientists would have noticed that by now.'
'Actually, they have. Matter pops into and out of existence all the time. That's what a quantum leap is. You've probably heard the term but didn't know its origin'" (Adams 57-62).

The final part of this theory is the fate of God. Adams notes the technological advances of humanity, specifically the Internet. Because of the Internet, anything can be published at any time by the will of the author/artist/etc. He predicts that, should humanity survive another 1,000 years, the technology will become so advanced that as soon as something is thought it can be accessed all around the world by anyone. To an outsider looking at Earth, humanity will not be a population of billions of individuals but a single entity (Ayn Rand will roll over in her grave). This, he said, was the re-combination of God.

That sums up the theory for the most part. He uses this philosophy to comment on other things such as evolution, ESP, and light. I do believe that this text is very poignant, but I have defined three major inconsistencies in his argument.

A) The entire theory is based on an assumption: the premise that at one time there WAS a God, and he WAS omnipotent/omniscient. The theory falls apart if there was never a God in existence or if that God(s) was/is imperfect.

B) Another assumption: if God is omnipotent, omniscient and perfect, why would he need a motivation to do anything. It is a human trait to require a specific motivation to perform an action; if a God is omnipotent/omniscient and completely non-human, then this trait would not exist.

C) His argument against Einstein's theory of warped space is weak (if you can even call it an argument). He states that because it is hard to understand, the argument is false. This is illogical. One, it is easy to undertand. Two, just because an argument is difficult to comprehend does not, in any way, make it wrong.

This is my perception of the theory. I have not disproved it, just showed that it cannot be proven. Does anyone have any ideas on how one could prove this or ways to further debunk it?

I apologize for the length of this post.

 

'Okay,' I said. 'I admit I don't know what any of that means. It does sound like nonsense.'
'Einstein's language about bent space and my description of God-dust are nothing more than mental models. If they help us deal with our environment, they are useful. My description of gravity is easier to understand than Einstein's model. In that sense, mine is better.'


C) His argument against Einstein's theory of warped space is weak (if you can even call it an argument). He states that because it is hard to understand, the argument is false. This is illogical. One, it is easy to undertand. Two, just because an argument is difficult to comprehend does not, in any way, make it wrong.



I don't understand how these two statements coincide.

 

Interesting thought: maybe when God was there in the void (or the void itself) was about to create everything, it saw the entire future of the creation. This flash is the universe we live in, a thought experiment in the mind of god.

Besides, it's strange to think of God making an action, unless one considers god to be a physical being. But how can a physical being exist before the universe was even created? And to make an action is to move in time, but time didn't exist yet either.

Also, why would god know every outcome EXCEPT that of killing himself, what makes that different? Isn't it just another action?

I think of the creation of the universe, if it was divine in nature, works more like a dance. Stasis suddenly became dynamic, the dancer creates their art in movement in time with their body, not as a seperate piece like a sculpture or painting. Thus, we shouldn't talk about the creation, but the creating

If it can't physically exist, what sense does it make? A concept with no ground in reality is worthless. Besides, matter breaks down into energy, which is not distinct from itself (there is fundamental connectedness on that level). God dust would be energy, the universe is a unity, and one starts to see the wisdom in Hinduism and Buddhism...

 

The generally accepted theory (as I have come to understand it) is that prior to the Big Bang, all matter was compressed into an infinitely dense, infinitely small point, which can be likened to the Singularity of a black hole. In the Big Bang, this expanded and matter as we know it was "created." But it is impossible that prior to the Big Bang there was no matter, for this would violate the principle that Spontaneous Generation does not exist. "Something" cannot arise from "nothing."

That's another valid weakness in Adams's argument. Thank you for pointing it out. I suppose, if I may play Devil's Advocate for a moment, if Adams were here he would theorize that God could not visualize a universe in which he did not exist (again, I use the pronoun "he" for easier comprehensibility). This cannot be fully supported by rationality, but it does make some sense.

I would personally agree with that statement.

Forgive me; I need to clarify this. There is such a thing as infinitely small particles. However, it is impossible for humans to ever physically detect them. It's kind of a Zeno's Paradox, in which we (conceptually) know that there are infinitely small lengths of time that compose the lenghts in which we measure time, it is physically impossible to detect or measure those lengths. Infinity, as zero, is an irrational number in that we cannot measure its quantity with instruments (logically meaning that it does not exist). However, when know that infinity, like zero, does exist though we cannot measure it. It is an irrational concept, but it is generally accepted. So, in conclusion, "God-dust" does physically exist, but it cannot ever be measured.

Let me identify a personal bias. I do not believe in Adams's theory. When I began to analyze the text God's Debris, I realized major gaps in his hypothesis, which I identified in my first post. The reason I posted this topic was to ensure that my analysis was correct and to see if anyone else had insight into the theory that I overlooked. By defending his theory, I am simply playing Devil's Advocate in order to further clarify the author's position. But his position is not necessarily my own.

 

The philosophy of God’s Debris is a perfectly legitimate philosophy; though the prerequisites for that are fairly generous. This philosophy contains the same flaws the book criticizes other theories for; incoherence and arbitrariness; and some big flaws unique to itself.


The easiest part of this philosophy to criticize is the assertion of God’s Self destruction. The book goes to great lengths to explain that the motivations we humans struggle with do not apply to God; and then it explains God’s act as due to very human motivations; curiosity and a Challenge. The inconsistency on this is profound. If God is incomprehensible in one paragraph, it is incoherent to claim to comprehend God in a later paragraph on the same page! If it is “arrogant” to think an omnipotent and omniscient God experiences love, want or need; if “Omnipotence means nothing is a challenge” it is incredible to argue that God is motivated by “challenges”. (The book’s protagonist, Avatar uses the word arrogant as a crutch.) Yet it is just such a challenge that provides the Cause for everything that follows. This is not believable.

Further, if God destroyed Himself in such a way that His debris acts to reassemble God, and in doing so directs all events in the resultant Universe, then God did a piss poor job of destroying Himself. This divine “destruction” is a mere pretense. God’s “experiment” is tainted by His on-going presence. If God’s goal is to experiment with a Godless reality, then God actually must go; not just retire to a distance.

Regarding the details of Avatar’s theory, two large problems appear to me.

The justification for asserting that particles vanish and reappear is based on an outmoded understanding of atomic structure. Before quantum theory, electrons were modeled as orbiting the nucleus like planets orbit the Sun. In this “planetary” model an electron’s seamless jump from one orbital to another seemed as spooky as Mars instantaneously jumping from its orbit to Jupiter’s.

Later theory understands electrons behave like waves, an electron’s “orbital” is replaced by a three-dimensional region in which its precise location as a particle is uncertain. Electrons behave like standing waves in this model. The electron wave inhabits the entire region. The shape of these regions are determined by the physics of wave resonances. Only a couple regions are even vaguely spherical. They often overlap. This is crucial.

A standing wave is like the vibration of a guitar when a guitarist plucks on a single unfingered string. If the guitarist drops their finger on a fret, the mode of the vibration changes “instantly”; it can be said to “jump” but it never ceases; it only changes.

When an electron vibrating around an atom absorbs a photon, the resonance mode of the electron changes instantly. But the electron does not “vanish” it just changes to a different mode which is what a different orbital means.

One could argue that it’s “simpler” to say the electron vanishes and then reappears “elsewhere” but that is a flawed argument. An electron’s location as a particle is equally uncertain both before and after a quantum leap, being probabilistically located somewhere in its region. The spatial regions of different electron resonances sometimes OVERLAP, so in fact the electron can change resonance without moving AS A PARTICLE at all! This simple explanation is consistent with observation, and it upends Avatar’s theory.

This would not be a significant issue except that Avatar justified the Universal pulse of matter by referring to quantum leaps; yet his understanding of quantum mechanics is weak

The second big problem with Avatar’s Theory is in his physical processes. Like the above discussion about QM, there is no way to discuss this briefly without being superficial.

Avatar criticizes things like magnetic fields as being non-physical and so unable to effect matter. So what does he offer in it’s place? Probability. Avatar may say that probability is simpler than fields and forces, and yet this is a charade. In the course of his dialog Avatar described not one but two probabilities, one for inertia, the other for gravity. What about magnetism? That will need a third kind of probability. And the strong nuclear force? A fourth. And the weak nuclear force. A fifth. And intrinsic angular momentum? Another.

And when we look at how the gravitational probability works, it will be just as complicated as gravity. And the inertial one as complicated as mass. And the electromagnetic one as complex as the EM force, and so on and so on. In Avatar’s Theory, Probability is not one thing, it is a class of things, as simple as the class of things called Forces in the Standard model. By the time Avatar’s model explains anything simpler than a falling stone, it will become at least as complex as standard physics.

And then some; because Avatar insists that “at the lowest layer everything is exactly the same. Matter is uniform.” This seems a simplicity, but only until it is compared with what we see. Matter at the lowest form we can observe is distinctly organized. Though the particle zoo is large, it is small compared to what “could be”. Certain particles exist with certain properties. Others do not exist.

If there is only one kind of fundamental particle, how is it that we do not see every possible kind of sub-atomic particle? Why some, but not others? Why are the particles we see not random in their characteristics? Oh, yes. Probability. Again. How many new kinds of “probability” will Avatar need to invoke to create the specific zoo of particle we see and not the googles and googles of others? At least 8. Bye-bye simplicity.

Avatar’s theory is simple and logical only until examined closely. It assumes the existence of God. God is the very personification of complexity and esoteric knowledge. Any theory that requires God, especially one that requires a confused explanation of God’s motivation and action is far, far from simple. Avatar criticizes science for using “placeholder” words to fill in the gaps in their knowledge; without agreeing with this criticism I notice that Avatar’s much-proclaimed simplicity is the product of numerous placeholder concepts intended to cover-up gaps in the theory; a theory having more gaps than substance.

There are other aspects of Avatar’s arguments I think are simply wrong, but these are secondary to the above; and I omit them except to note that the comments about Evolution are deeply ignorant. The book sounds like the stuff Creationists spout. Evolution is a much subtler and more interesting process than Scott Adams describes.

Ultimately, God’s Debris relies on deliberately false science to bolster a glib, incoherent philosophy in the hope of mesmerizing readers.

- azimuth