Atheism Peaks, While Spiritual Groups Move Toward Convergence

[Kharakov]

Another option is that QFT doesn't fully address the possible existence of many parallel spacetimes, which are connected by a higher level spacetime manifold, or the existence of intelligent spacetime which can keep certain particles from interacting with others unless certain conditions are meet.

Other options? There is more than one type of mass/energy in the universe. In an other type mass/energy particle accelerator, the particles will never create particles that interact with ours. In fact, they create the exact same particles, however they only interact through gravitation with ours.

Another option: beings that evolve in black holes, comprised of living spacetime, that can influence matter/energy anywhere in the universe.

You know. Like Mass Acre's Dawn of Eternity:



Not at all, you don't toss out all of science because of one incorrect assumption that has little impact on the truth of what is known.

Yeah, sure, there's plenty of room for other things THAT HAVE NO INFLUENCE AT ALL ON US.

But that's not the question.

As far as human beings are concerned, we have ruled out all interactions with anything not described by the Standard Model;

Sure. Don't look for anything beyond the SM, because it has been declared complete by people who make illogical claims that non-detection is the equivalent of absence. Exotic matter particles don't have to be made of energy/mass that interacts with standard model mass/energy. They don't have to be able to be created by standard model mass/energy, that is constrained to act upon standard model particles.

The Earth is flat. The Sun is the center of the universe. The standard model describes everything that can interact with standard model particles. QFT is complete. An invisible pink unicorn is giving me a blow job while its horn is up my ass.

Yeah, there might be dark matter that interacts with regular matter only through gravity. But that idea in no way enables the concept of life after death, or intervention in human affairs by some unknown agency.

Unless beings composed of dark matter have developed means of interacting with regular matter using spacetime waves. They may be more technologically advanced then us. In this case, they may be able to copy our consciousnesses into dark matter bodies, or transfer them into new matter bodies at death.

If God is hiding, then He is doing so so effectively that:
A) Finding Him would more likely piss Him off than make Him happy.
B) We can be certain that none of the world's religions have found Him.
C) There is no benefit, now or in the future, to our belief in Him at this time.

D) Spacetime is hiding from you! It's in your glovebox!

So in summary, I know that you are wrong; but even if you were right, I know that it would change nothing.

I know nothing changes because nothing stays the same.

We have closed the last of the gaps for the God of the gaps; there are still gaps, but they are demonstrably unsuitable for any entity that fits any reasonable definition of the word 'God'.

I'll fill gaps.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, sure, there's plenty of room for other things THAT HAVE NO INFLUENCE AT ALL ON US.

But that's not the question.

As far as human beings are concerned, we have ruled out all interactions with anything not described by the Standard Model;

Sure. Don't look for anything beyond the SM, because it has been declared complete by people who make illogical claims that non-detection is the equivalent of absence.

No. It has been declared complete, at human scales, by people who have sound reasons to believe it to be complete at those scales, and those reasons are, given the discovery of the Higgs Boson, backed by hard evidence. One of them even gave a nice, easy to grasp lecture, setting out exactly that:

Skip to 34:06 if you don't have time to watch the whole thing (Although I can recommend the whole thing).

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrs-Azp0i3k[/YOUTUBE]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrs-Azp0i3k

Exotic matter particles don't have to be made of energy/mass that interacts with standard model mass/energy. They don't have to be able to be created by standard model mass/energy, that is constrained to act upon standard model particles.

Indeed they do not. But if they do not, then they cannot act on us, because we are made of standard model particles. So if exotic matter or exotic energy exist (and they may well), then they cannot have any influence on individual humans in our daily lives; and they cannot enable the continuation of our consciousness after the death and decay of our brains. Brains which must only consist of standard model particles, because nothing else can possibly interact with those particles in a living brain - any exotic interaction is either too weak to have any effect, or too short range to have any effect, or too energetic for the brain (or indeed a large part of its surroundings) to survive the encounter. I am sure we would have noticed if human deaths were accompanied by city-levelling explosions of energy as our consciousness was scanned for replication in heaven.

The Earth is flat.

False

The Sun is the center of the universe.

True only from the perspective of the Sun

The standard model describes everything that can interact with standard model particles.

True only at human scales; Probably false at scales smaller than the size of a proton, and at energies larger than are found anywhere on Earth other than in particle accelerators.

QFT is complete.

True at the scales and energies we are discussing; False at very small scales and very high energies.

An invisible pink unicorn is giving me a blow job while its horn is up my ass.

Implausible and unfalsifiable, so presumably not true, no matter how much you might like it to be.

Yeah, there might be dark matter that interacts with regular matter only through gravity. But that idea in no way enables the concept of life after death, or intervention in human affairs by some unknown agency.

Unless beings composed of dark matter have developed means of interacting with regular matter using spacetime waves.

There are not, and cannot be, any such waves that can have an effect at the scales and energies involved.

They may be more technologically advanced then us.

That doesn't matter. No technology can supervene natural law; there is no technology that can do the impossible.

In this case, they may be able to copy our consciousnesses into dark matter bodies, or transfer them into new matter bodies at death.

False

If God is hiding, then He is doing so so effectively that:
A) Finding Him would more likely piss Him off than make Him happy.
B) We can be certain that none of the world's religions have found Him.
C) There is no benefit, now or in the future, to our belief in Him at this time.

D) Spacetime is hiding from you! It's in your glovebox!

False. I checked there yesterday.

So in summary, I know that you are wrong; but even if you were right, I know that it would change nothing.

I know nothing changes because nothing stays the same.

FTFY, John Snow.

We have closed the last of the gaps for the God of the gaps; there are still gaps, but they are demonstrably unsuitable for any entity that fits any reasonable definition of the word 'God'.

I'll fill gaps.

I don't doubt it.

 

[Kharakov]

Sure. Don't look for anything beyond the SM, because it has been declared complete by people who make illogical claims that non-detection is the equivalent of absence.

No. It has been declared complete, at human scales, by people who have sound reasons to believe it to be complete at those scales, and those reasons are, given the discovery of the Higgs Boson, backed by hard evidence.
...

Exotic matter particles don't have to be made of energy/mass that interacts with standard model mass/energy. They don't have to be able to be created by standard model mass/energy, that is constrained to act upon standard model particles.

Indeed they do not. But if they do not, then they cannot act on us, because we are made of standard model particles. So if exotic matter or exotic energy exist (and they may well), then they cannot have any influence on individual humans in our daily lives; and they cannot enable the continuation of our consciousness after the death and decay of our brains.

There are numerous scenarios in which they could interact with us. They could influence spacetime with much greater packing density, and respond to minute changes in spacetime. Exotic matter beings could permeate our brains without interacting directly with them, and transmit the spacetime pattern of our brain through exotic matter tech (or simply evolve to detect patterns in spacetime, and interact with the patterns).

Perhaps exotic matter is orders of magnitude less massive than our particles, but still able to bond to itself just as strong as our particles bond to one another. Maybe great structures can easily be built around a single group of neurons in our brains, that allow complex information to be retrieved (download our consciousness), or directly fed into our consciousness (upload information).

It may be ephemeral. It may be impossible for us to detect with our current tech. But beings comprised of matter that is orders of magnitude smaller scale than our quantum particles might be able to develop tech that allows them to contact us. The time scales would be... infinitely faster for them. They'd be orders of magnitude more advanced than us.

I wonder what kind of footgear they have?

 

[Keith&Co.]

The laws of logic were discovered not invented.

That's an interesting claim.
Logic is a tool to evaluate ideas. This claim would suggest that you can demonstrate that logic existed before there were minds to have ideas and try to evaluate them. Or at least, that the laws 'exist' independently of minds.
What would such a demonstration even look like?

 

[bilby]

No. It has been declared complete, at human scales, by people who have sound reasons to believe it to be complete at those scales, and those reasons are, given the discovery of the Higgs Boson, backed by hard evidence.
...

Exotic matter particles don't have to be made of energy/mass that interacts with standard model mass/energy. They don't have to be able to be created by standard model mass/energy, that is constrained to act upon standard model particles.

Indeed they do not. But if they do not, then they cannot act on us, because we are made of standard model particles. So if exotic matter or exotic energy exist (and they may well), then they cannot have any influence on individual humans in our daily lives; and they cannot enable the continuation of our consciousness after the death and decay of our brains.

There are numerous scenarios in which they could interact with us.

Then name one, and detail how it gets around the fact that we are made of electrons and quarks, which only interact in known ways with known particles and forces.

They could influence spacetime with much greater packing density, and respond to minute changes in spacetime.

But we can't, so we would remain completely unaware that they were doing so; it could not possibly have any effect on us at all.

Exotic matter beings could permeate our brains without interacting directly with them, and transmit the spacetime pattern of our brain through exotic matter tech (or simply evolve to detect patterns in spacetime, and interact with the patterns).

No, they couldn't. 'exotic matter tech' whatever it might be, cannot affect our brains except by means of the known and easily detected particles and forces of the standard model. We know this is not happening. It isn't possible.

Perhaps exotic matter is orders of magnitude less massive than our particles, but still able to bond to itself just as strong as our particles bond to one another.

So fucking what? It couldn't then interact with us. Because QFT rules out that as a possibility.

Maybe great structures can easily be built around a single group of neurons in our brains, that allow complex information to be retrieved (download our consciousness), or directly fed into our consciousness (upload information).

You can imagine it. But that doesn't make it possible. And QFT rules it out. Why would I accept your fevered imaginings as plausible, and in doing so reject the most comprehensively tested and successful model of anything that humans have ever made?

It may be ephemeral. It may be impossible for us to detect with our current tech.

Look, if you don't understand what Sean Carroll says in his lecture, then feel free to ask for clarification. If you can't or won't watch the video, then say so. If you disagree with what he says, detail your disagreement, and give support for your alternative. But don't just act like there was nothing presented. He explains, in fairly simple language, why the things you suggest here are impossible. To use his analogy, you are acting like a spectator at a chess match who is suggesting a winning move that involves moving a rook diagonally; Unless you can show how that is compatible with the rules, you are just demonstrating your lack of understanding of the game.

But beings comprised of matter that is orders of magnitude smaller scale than our quantum particles might be able to develop tech that allows them to contact us.

No. Such beings cannot both exist and interact with us. Those two conditions cannot apply simultaneously.

The time scales would be... infinitely faster for them. They'd be orders of magnitude more advanced than us.

I wonder what kind of footgear they have?

 

[Malintent]

No, it is sarcasm and mockery.

I got it. You were mocking peoples beliefs about the worldview of atheism.

Just as I am about to mock yours...

It is not a psychological stance... not any more than your denial of the existence of bigfoot is a psychological stance. Has anyone given you sufficient reason to believe in the existence of bigfoot? if not does that not end the discussion about bigfoot for you, or shall we discuss your psychological state of bigfoot denial?

See, it just doesn't make sense.
Atheism means lack of belief in the existence of gods. it is that simple, so get over it.
Humanism is a worldview, somewhat common among atheists... because it is based on rationality, not superstition, so it is pretty consistent with each other.

when an atheist "defends their worldview", they are not defending atheism, they are defending whatever position they hold on whatever topic is at hand. One need not "defend" non-existence claims.... the claim is a RESPONSE to a failure to establish something (god's existence) as fact.

Do you have to prove that you don't owe me that million dollars I claim you owe me? Good luck defending that worldview!

 

[ronburgundy]

But to claim the most atheists know more about theology is challengeable.

Challenge met.

This Pew Survey using large random national samples found that Atheists/Agnostics knew more than any religious group about religion. They asked questions in 3 categories. On questions about the Bible and the history of Christianity atheists knew significantly more than Jews and all Christian sects except for Mormons and white Evangelicals. On questions about world religions and religion in public life (e.g., legal and political facts about religion and society), atheists knew more than every Christian sect, and only slightly less than Jews. BTW, a huge % Jews in the US are mostly agnostic or even atheists and only identify as Jews for ethnicity reasons.

This advantage of atheists over most Christians remained even after controlling for education and SES.

 

[Kharakov]

Perhaps exotic matter is orders of magnitude less massive than our particles, but still able to bond to itself just as strong as our particles bond to one another.

So fucking what? It couldn't then interact with us. Because QFT rules out that as a possibility.

Maybe great structures can easily be built around a single group of neurons in our brains, that allow complex information to be retrieved (download our consciousness), or directly fed into our consciousness (upload information).

You can imagine it. But that doesn't make it possible. And QFT rules it out.

No it doesn't. Even the video you keep bringing up specifically describes the scales that QFT purportedly does and does not rule out.

It may be ephemeral. It may be impossible for us to detect with our current tech.

..He explains, in fairly simple language, why the things you suggest here are impossible.

No he doesn't. He specifically described, in very simple language that you apparently can't grasp, the scales of interaction that he alleges QFT addresses.

If there are particles that exist at scales 10^-43 times smaller than the Planck length (Planck squared), they might operate on time scales far faster than ours (evolve much more quickly). The civilizations that emerged could be billions of billions of times older than our own. Naturally (entirely through natural law) the particles they are comprised of would not join together into structures large enough to even influence one of our particles in the slightest (except through gravitation).

However, there is no reason to think that mega structures, created from their particles, would not be able to influence our particles.

Why don't we detect these particles being created when we smash hadrons together? Well, if a few of these particles are created in the collision, the energy discrepancy will be far smaller than anything we can detect with current technology. In fact, it would be orders of magnitude less than vacuum energy, perhaps on a scale similar to the  vacuum energy catastrophe (which would be either ironic or completely logical).


The other idea, about exotic non-interacting mass energy that could interact under very specific conditions is still completely valid. Specific arrangements of exotic matter might create electromagnetic excitations in spacetime, although it would require someone intelligent building a transmitter in order to create the EM excitations, which is why we don't detect naturally occurring EM excitations from exotic matter.

Naturally occurring configurations of the allegedly existing exotic matter particles cannot create EM (electromagnetic) excitations, or are very very very unlikely to do so at mass/energy densities that exist over 300k years after the BB.



Anyways, the point is simple. The following statement isn't technically correct, and is of the type that creationists latch onto when they get in an uproar about the ignorance and lack of intellectual integrity of atheists who make claims about stuff that they know nothing about.

We know about every particle and force that is able to influence objects from the size of atoms up to the size of planets, at the temperatures and pressures that exist on Earth. There are no unexplained phenomena, outside those few particles and forces; things are never observed to behave in ways inexplicable in terms of natural law.

There is no reason to make such unsupportable claims, is there?

 

[bilby]

So fucking what? It couldn't then interact with us. Because QFT rules out that as a possibility.

Maybe great structures can easily be built around a single group of neurons in our brains, that allow complex information to be retrieved (download our consciousness), or directly fed into our consciousness (upload information).

You can imagine it. But that doesn't make it possible. And QFT rules it out.

No it doesn't. Even the video you keep bringing up specifically describes the scales that QFT purportedly does and does not rule out.

It may be ephemeral. It may be impossible for us to detect with our current tech.

..He explains, in fairly simple language, why the things you suggest here are impossible.

No he doesn't. He specifically described, in very simple language that you apparently can't grasp, the scales of interaction that he alleges QFT addresses.

If there are particles that exist at scales 10^-43 times smaller than the Planck length (Planck squared), they might operate on time scales far faster than ours (evolve much more quickly). The civilizations that emerged could be billions of billions of times older than our own. Naturally (entirely through natural law) the particles they are comprised of would not join together into structures large enough to even influence one of our particles in the slightest (except through gravitation).

However, there is no reason to think that mega structures, created from their particles, would not be able to influence our particles.

Why don't we detect these particles being created when we smash hadrons together? Well, if a few of these particles are created in the collision, the energy discrepancy will be far smaller than anything we can detect with current technology. In fact, it would be orders of magnitude less than vacuum energy, perhaps on a scale similar to the  vacuum energy catastrophe (which would be either ironic or completely logical).


The other idea, about exotic non-interacting mass energy that could interact under very specific conditions is still completely valid. Specific arrangements of exotic matter might create electromagnetic excitations in spacetime, although it would require someone intelligent building a transmitter in order to create the EM excitations, which is why we don't detect naturally occurring EM excitations from exotic matter.

Naturally occurring configurations of the allegedly existing exotic matter particles cannot create EM (electromagnetic) excitations, or are very very very unlikely to do so at mass/energy densities that exist over 300k years after the BB.



Anyways, the point is simple. The following statement isn't technically correct, and is of the type that creationists latch onto when they get in an uproar about the ignorance and lack of intellectual integrity of atheists who make claims about stuff that they know nothing about.

We know about every particle and force that is able to influence objects from the size of atoms up to the size of planets, at the temperatures and pressures that exist on Earth. There are no unexplained phenomena, outside those few particles and forces; things are never observed to behave in ways inexplicable in terms of natural law.

There is no reason to make such unsupportable claims, is there?

if you think that you can refute a statement about interactions on the scale of living humans by reference to scales 10^-43 times smaller than the Planck length, then you are nuts.

Particularly as Sean Carroll points out in the video (that you are apparently cherry-picking from to avoid inconvenient reality) that you can predict everything at large scales without reference to the rules at smaller scales - so, as he says, you can do biology without needing to first know all of chemistry; and you can do chemistry without needing to know all of physics.

Did you not understand his explanation? If you have an objection to it, and can support that objection with facts, then do so. But just ignoring the clearly stated reasons why your suggestions are wrong makes you appear dishonest.

 

[Kharakov]

What SC is talking about is SM interactions. You don't have to reference the fundamental forces at the level of biology or chemistry.

This has nothing to do with scales in which other particles interact, or exotic matter self interactions.

So anyways, all the other types of possible material interactions are still possible, given that current generation QFT does not rule them out.

 

[bilby]

What SC is talking about is SM interactions. You don't have to reference the fundamental forces at the level of biology or chemistry.

This has nothing to do with scales in which other particles interact, or exotic matter self interactions.

So anyways, all the other types of possible material interactions are still possible, given that current generation QFT does not rule them out.

Well as long as you can imagine some gaps for your imaginary God. I guess He doesn't need real gaps, being fictional and all.

 

[Kharakov]

I'm not exactly sure what God has to do with your statements being false? Is this your hidden theistic way of claiming GodDidIt about everything?

 

[lpetrich]

The Standard Model isn't the final answer, and we've had reason to believe that for as long as we have had a well-defined conception of it, starting in the mid 1970's with QCD and electroweak theory.

Non-SM particles and effects: neutrino masses, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravity, dark matter, dark energy, inflation

Theoretical problems: sources of neutrino masses, strong CP violation, Higgs-particle instability, elementary-fermion unification, gauge unification


But I don't see how this could support anyone's pet theology or metaphysics.

 

[bilby]

The Standard Model isn't the final answer, and we've had reason to believe that for as long as we have had a well-defined conception of it, starting in the mid 1970's with QCD and electroweak theory.

Non-SM particles and effects: neutrino masses, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravity, dark matter, dark energy, inflation

Theoretical problems: sources of neutrino masses, strong CP violation, Higgs-particle instability, elementary-fermion unification, gauge unification


But I don't see how this could support anyone's pet theology or metaphysics.

Then you have failed to grasp just how desperate some people are to find any hint of a crack into which they could squeeze their crazy beliefs.

It doesn't matter whether it's impossible; just as long as they can convince themselves that it hasn't yet been conclusively shown to be impossible.

That it would still be incredibly unlikely, even if they could find a way to avoid the conclusion that it is impossible, doesn't phase them one bit.

 

[Underseer]

The surest way to deflect from the main point to a lesser one among atheists is to appear to get the definition of “atheist” wrong. They'll elaborate the definition to death, and often. This mere “lack of belief” sure has a lot of identity issues wrapped up in it.

Meanwhile a number of the “everybody gets atheism wrong” folk go on making a false dichotomy between atheism and religion. They perpetuate another extremely common mistake: the identity of religion with theism.

I think religion will change and never go away. The added options in polls to allow a place for the irreligious who aren’t atheist and the religious who aren’t theists are increasing, not because the world’s turning atheist but because more and more people (including many atheists) seek a non-traditional religion or “spirituality”.

There's a very good reason for atheists getting up in arms about the definition.

Most theists (especially Christians and Muslims) try to define atheist a particular way in order to divest themselves of the responsibility of proving their own truth claims.

Please pardon us for failing to just let those ridiculous rhetorical tricks slide by without comment. Of course if we were just more reasonable, we would agree that it is up to us to disprove Christianity, disprove Islam, and disprove the 3000+ other religions that are or have ever been practiced by man before declaring ourselves atheists.

We're so unreasonable.

 

[Kharakov]

The Standard Model isn't the final answer, and we've had reason to believe that for as long as we have had a well-defined conception of it, starting in the mid 1970's with QCD and electroweak theory.

Non-SM particles and effects: neutrino masses, matter-antimatter asymmetry, gravity, dark matter, dark energy, inflation

Theoretical problems: sources of neutrino masses, strong CP violation, Higgs-particle instability, elementary-fermion unification, gauge unification


But I don't see how this could support anyone's pet theology or metaphysics.

Then you have failed to grasp just how desperate some people are to find any hint of a crack into which they could squeeze their crazy beliefs.

It doesn't matter whether it's impossible; just as long as they can convince themselves that it hasn't yet been conclusively shown to be impossible.

That it would still be incredibly unlikely, even if they could find a way to avoid the conclusion that it is impossible, doesn't phase them one bit.

Yeah. You just keep believing that the SM includes dark matter and energy.

 

[bilby]

Then you have failed to grasp just how desperate some people are to find any hint of a crack into which they could squeeze their crazy beliefs.

It doesn't matter whether it's impossible; just as long as they can convince themselves that it hasn't yet been conclusively shown to be impossible.

That it would still be incredibly unlikely, even if they could find a way to avoid the conclusion that it is impossible, doesn't phase them one bit.

Yeah. You just keep believing that the SM includes dark matter and energy.

Strawman arguments are unimpressive.

I never suggested that the SM includes dark matter and energy; Just that we have experimentally ruled out those things having any effect at all AT HUMAN SCALES.

Which is true. Whether you like it or not.

 

[skepticalbip]

Actually dark matter and dark energy are just place holders, proposals (epicycles) added so observations fit the standard model. There is no reason to believe that dark matter is exotic matter other than we haven’t seen it… yet. But then maybe we have, haloes of hot ionized gas has been observed around active galazies – possibly sufficient to account for the baffling galactic rotation that dark matter was proposed to solve. Is it possible that all galaxies have this halo but the inactive ones don’t heat it so it is observable?

Dark energy is also just a place holder (epicycle) to make observation fit the standard model. It is quite possible that the standard model needs to be replaced as relativity replaced the Newtonian model (or the heliocentric model replaced the geocentric model to get rid of those fucking epicycles). There are a lot of physicists who are troubled by both inflation and dark energy.

 

[bilby]

Actually dark matter and dark energy are just place holders, proposals (epicycles) added so observations fit the standard model. There is no reason to believe that dark matter is exotic matter other than we haven’t see it… yet. But then maybe we have, haloes of hot ionized gas has been observed around active galazies – possibly sufficient to account for the baffling galactic rotation that dark matter was proposed to solve. Is it possible that all galaxies have this halo but the inactive ones don’t heat it so it is observable?

Dark energy is also just a place holder (epicycle) to make observation fit the standard model. It is quite possible that the standard model needs to be replaced as relativity replaced the Newtonian model. There are a lot of physicists who are troubled by both inflation and dark energy.

The point being that these things are currently unknown. But, importantly, they are known not to have influence on human scales. They could be due to 'normal' matter and energy, or to some 'exotic' matter or energy. But they could NOT enable intervention in human affairs by Gods, aliens or anything else; nor could they enable life after death.

There are lots of unknowns. But one of the knowns is that those unknowns cannot have any current influence on human affairs. They are of interest to astronomers and particle physicists, but cannot be directly affecting individual humans.

 

[skepticalbip]

Actually dark matter and dark energy are just place holders, proposals (epicycles) added so observations fit the standard model. There is no reason to believe that dark matter is exotic matter other than we haven’t see it… yet. But then maybe we have, haloes of hot ionized gas has been observed around active galazies – possibly sufficient to account for the baffling galactic rotation that dark matter was proposed to solve. Is it possible that all galaxies have this halo but the inactive ones don’t heat it so it is observable?

Dark energy is also just a place holder (epicycle) to make observation fit the standard model. It is quite possible that the standard model needs to be replaced as relativity replaced the Newtonian model. There are a lot of physicists who are troubled by both inflation and dark energy.

The point being that these things are currently unknown. But, importantly, they are known not to have influence on human scales. They could be due to 'normal' matter and energy, or to some 'exotic' matter or energy. But they could NOT enable intervention in human affairs by Gods, aliens or anything else; nor could they enable life after death.

There are lots of unknowns. But one of the knowns is that those unknowns cannot have any current influence on human affairs. They are of interest to astronomers and particle physicists, but cannot be directly affecting individual humans.

Well said. "We don't know, yet" does not mean that we can stuff anything we want into the gap and have it make sense.