[drdeca]

Your concept of “explains” seems like nonsense to me.

“what’s the mechanism?”? “[…] but that doesn't tell you what it is. It just tells you how it behaves […]”? A thing is what it does. C.f. the Yoneda lemma.

Again, your complaints sound like dissatisfaction with the fact that the world doesn’t run on stuff that fundamentally resembles substances we have everyday familiarity with.

You speak of “fitting the data”. I say “is compatible with the evidence”.

Also, asking where spacetime is, is a goofy question.

Oh, I see, you are expecting intrinsic curvature to derive from extrinsic curvature? There is no need for that. You could posit a larger (flat) space to allow that, but there is no reason to, as it would be indistinguishable from the simpler alternative.

“ We found out the universe is not amenable to our knowing it with any familiarity.” : You have to remember: it all adds up to normality. Any part of how the world works that seems “weird”, was already like that before you learned of it, and is, in fact, normal.

When I said “take it up with God”, that wasn’t just a figure of speech. Isiah 55:8-9 : “ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God’s thoughts, God’s designs, are greater than our own. If how the universe functions offends our sensibilities, it is our sensibilities that need to change.

At the same time, Philippians 4:8 : “ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

You say “ All they'll give us are ways to make better tools.” , but, better tools? This is certainly not my motivation! My motivation is to know truth! And, there is much that is both lovely and true in what you dismiss as “models that fit the data”.

[albatross79]

> Again, your complaints sound like dissatisfaction with the fact that the world doesn’t run on stuff that fundamentally resembles substances we have everyday familiarity with.

Ok, so you tell me, what does it run on? Intrinsic curvature and virtual particles, or what?

[drdeca]

I wouldn’t say it “runs on” virtual particles per se. I think the virtual particle terms are more tracking the interactions between different fields. I would say it runs on quantum fields on a curved spacetime, yeah. And, as for what precisely a quantum field is, this is somewhat mysterious, but generally it is a quantum version of a classical field, where there is a value (e.g. “value of the electromagnetic field”) at each point in spacetime. For quantum fields, instead of each point having a definite value, for any region there is an observable for the total value in that region.

As for how the curvature of spacetime fits with all that, that is an open question that has yet to be resolved. Well, constructing a quantum field theory within a given curved spacetime is fine, but we don’t know how exactly GR and QFT fit together.

I expect that your response is going to be to call these “abstractions” or something, as if this does anything more to discredit them than complaining that any idea is “just an idea”. But these are measurable things. That which can be measured is a real thing.

[squeefers]

> When I said “take it up with God”, that wasn’t just a figure of speech. Isiah 55:8-9

how come our lord and saviour only seemed to do magic tricks around 2000 years ago? has he lost mana or something?

[drdeca]

You seem to be asking about “divine hiddenness”. I don’t know why God doesn’t make His existence more obvious to those that don’t seek Him. Like I quoted above, his ways are above our ways. That’s not to say that the reason is definitely beyond what I can comprehend, just that it is beyond what I do comprehend.

(On the off chance that you were being sincere in your question about mana: no.)

The point I was trying to make by quoting that passage was the necessity of humility. The way the world works doesn’t need our approval. It is above us.