[hanp]

I was thinking about something involving an eternal flame, sounds like it could have potential.

[Lobowolf]

I refuse to cite to The Bangles.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on Apr 3 2009, 03:29 PM, said:

luke warm, on Apr 3 2009, 03:15 PM, said:

possibly i did... in an eternal (i use the word to mean one with no beginning, one that has always existed) universe, the timeline between events could not be traversed going forward or backwards... are we speaking of different things?

Hard to say if we are talking about the same things or different because I don't see what you are getting at.

Consider an infinite sequence of real numbers mapped to time. Surely one can traverse that sequence back and forth even though it has neither beginning nor end.

i think we might have put the cart before the horse... it might be useful to define the terms, assuming we can even agree on the use of those terms... do you see a differentiation between an actual and a potential infinite? if not, why not? if so, how do you define each? that should at least give us a starting point (much like the universe had one )

aside from the philosophical aspect, don't most scientists now believe the universe began at some point in time (i usually hear 15 billion years ago) with the big bang? or has that been overturned?

[Lobowolf]

luke warm, on Apr 3 2009, 05:28 PM, said:

aside from the philosophical aspect, don't most scientists now believe the universe began at some point in time (i usually hear 15 billion years ago) with the big bang? or has that been overturned?

Not quite so old, I think. Between 13.5 and 14 billion. It was formerly thought to be more like 15 billion, but now they've got it narrowed down to the nearest 300 million years or so.

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on Apr 3 2009, 05:28 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Apr 3 2009, 03:29 PM, said:

luke warm, on Apr 3 2009, 03:15 PM, said:

possibly i did... in an eternal (i use the word to mean one with no beginning, one that has always existed) universe, the timeline between events could not be traversed going forward or backwards... are we speaking of different things?

Hard to say if we are talking about the same things or different because I don't see what you are getting at.

Consider an infinite sequence of real numbers mapped to time. Surely one can traverse that sequence back and forth even though it has neither beginning nor end.

i think we might have put the cart before the horse... it might be useful to define the terms, assuming we can even agree on the use of those terms... do you see a differentiation between an actual and a potential infinite? if not, why not? if so, how do you define each? that should at least give us a starting point (much like the universe had one )

aside from the philosophical aspect, don't most scientists now believe the universe began at some point in time (i usually hear 15 billion years ago) with the big bang? or has that been overturned?

I'm not using the words infinite and logical in any special sense. We do use numbers to map to time because that proves useful. There is no logical reason why time could not go on infinitely in either direction.

Evidence does point to the big band as the start of the universe as we know it. That's a point about physical reality, not about logic. We have no information about anything before that.

It's possible, of course, to call whatever existed before the big bang "god," but it's quite a leap from there to a literal belief in the Noah's ark story.

[jdonn]

luke warm, on Apr 3 2009, 05:28 PM, said:

i think we might have put the cart before the horse... it might be useful to define the terms, assuming we can even agree on the use of those terms... do you see a differentiation between an actual and a potential infinite? if not, why not? if so, how do you define each? that should at least give us a starting point (much like the universe had one )

aside from the philosophical aspect, don't most scientists now believe the universe began at some point in time (i usually hear 15 billion years ago) with the big bang? or has that been overturned?

I wasn't trying to argue that the universe either did or didn't have a starting point. My point is that there is no way we can know, but it's certainly not inherently (logically) impossible. So it seems to me extremely flawed to try to use logic to point to the universe having had a beginning and use that to justify a belief in god. After that point in the conversation I have very little clue what most of what you said meant. I don't see why you are asking others to define terms. You are the one making a claim about something being impossible, so I think you ought to define the terms/ideas you are using.

Btw I could be wrong, but my understanding of the big bang was that it was (at least potentially) thought to be a repeating process. The universe contracts to a very tiny size, BANGS into a gigantic size, rinses and repeats a few bajillion times. So I don't necessarily think of it as the beginning of the universe.

[Winstonm]

I think some of the flaws in the theist explanations simply come from filling a void (an unknown) with a term, expression, or reason and then proving logically that the unproven premise leads to a valid logical conclusion.

Example: I have seen this claim many times in these forums or a similar theme: something cannot come from nothing, meaning before the Big Bang there was nothing and everything we recognize as matter, energy, and time sprang into being at once - and since something cannot come from nothing, yada yada yadi.

Truth of the matter is, we simply don't know if nothing - in the sense that all we can say about nothing is it is an absence of what is known to man - can produce our known universe. Is the interior of a black hole nothing? Will our universe expand forever or will it slow down and start to contract?

These questions have no known answers. When we delve into logical assumptions based on our own limited thinking abilities we may well satisfy logic but that in no way ratifies the rightness or wrongness of the belief - it only inplies that the belief - given the premise - is not illogical.

[mike777]

"Example: I have seen this claim many times in these forums or a similar theme: something cannot come from nothing, meaning before the Big Bang there was nothing and everything we recognize as matter, energy, and time sprang into being at once - and since something cannot come from nothing, yada yada yadi."


I respectfully disagree, yes something cannot come from nothing per logic.

I have argued in other threads to be NOT afraid of Knowledge and to NOT assume all Knowledge is just some social construct.

Per this thread, even God cannot create God from nothing. Only nothing can come out of nothing.

To use your analogy if there was something before the Big Bang it was not nothing.


"The scientist and Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, although he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval atom"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang


"Truth of the matter is, we simply don't know if nothing - in the sense that all we can say about nothing is it is an absence of what known to man - can produce our known universe. Is the interior of a black hole nothing? Will our universe expand forever or will it slow down and start to contract?"

Yes if something is forever unknowable or if information is forever lost that is one issue. As for the interior of a blackhole I think the debate/question is information lost forever and unknowable? At this point the answer/definition seems to be yes. As for the edge of a blackhole, Hawking seems to say no, information is not forever lost.

To bring this whole issue back to this thread on God. Most major religions claim knowledge of God is knowable, not a secret unknowable.

[helene_t]

jdonn, on Apr 4 2009, 12:38 AM, said:

Btw I could be wrong, but my understanding of the big bang was that it was (at least potentially) thought to be a repeating process. The universe contracts to a very tiny size, BANGS into a gigantic size, rinses and repeats a few bajillion times. So I don't necessarily think of it as the beginning of the universe.

I don't think that is universally accepted. Anyway, suppose it is impossible to know anything about the pre-big bang history because all the information that might have been was destroyed in the process. You could then chose to say either
1) Big Bang was the beginning of time
2) There was a time before big bang but we can know nothing about what, if anything, happened back then
3) We will have to remain agnostic w.r.t. 1 vs. 2.
4) The 1 v 2 question is meaningless.

I don't think it matters, it is just a question of what phrasing you are more comfortable with.

winstonm said:

Truth of the matter is, we simply don't know if nothing - in the sense that all we can say about nothing is it is an absence of what known to man - can produce our known universe.

Agree 100%. If someone (surely none of the people contributing to this discussion) knows a lot about physics then he/she might have a qualified opinion whether it is possible that the whole universe just popped into existence out of thin air. Personally I don't know if it is clear what "nothing" means, whether there could have been a time when there was nothing (intuitively I would say that if there was no material to build clocks from then there was no time either, but I may be wrong), etc.

[mike777]

1) As a layman I have never read a theory of a universe popping out of thin air.
2) Repeating big bangs, seldom but ok.
3) multiple big bangs as opposed to repeating ones, often.
4) universe as a Hologram....YES.....

[the hog]

Jimmy, who made the watchmaker?

[Winstonm]

Quote

Personally I don't know if it is clear what "nothing" means, whether there could have been a time when there was nothing

It occured to me that although the language and ideas have become more sophisticated, that a statement such as "something cannot be created from nothing" - a conclusion based on man's limited understanding - is really a method for humans to account for an unexplainable phenomenon. I would say there is a closer association than we might be comfortable admitting between our present explanation of unknowns with sayings such as "something cannot come from nothing" and early mankind's explanation of the sun as a god who drives a chariot of fire across the sky each day.

[luke warm]

The_Hog, on Apr 4 2009, 06:18 AM, said:

Jimmy, who made the watchmaker?

ron, we can't even seem to agree on this forum over such things as ex nihilo nihil fit, or even the law of cause and effect... but if we could agree that from nothing nothing comes, it makes it easy to arrive at the conclusion that something has always existed, else there would be nothing now... now all we have to do is try to reason what it is that might have always existed... if you read the above posts re: the eternalness of the universe, you'll see the problem - if the universe, hence time (which is a part of the universe), is actually infinite then it means an infinite regression can be traversed, which is not possible... an infinite temporal series of receding events occurring in nature would be an actual infinite, but this is incoherent... there are many analogies that demonstrate this, such as hilbert's hotel (though this is but one of many)... since ex nihilo nihil fit (assuming one accepts this), and since time isn't an actual infinite, whatever has always existed must be outside of and apart from time... it doesn't matter to me whether this entity, whatever it is, is called "God"... call it (or him) what you will

Winstonm, on Apr 4 2009, 08:38 AM, said:

Quote

Personally I don't know if it is clear what "nothing" means, whether there could have been a time when there was nothing

It occured to me that although the language and ideas have become more sophisticated, that a statement such as "something cannot be created from nothing" - a conclusion based on man's limited understanding - is really a method for humans to account for an unexplainable phenomenon. I would say there is a closer association than we might be comfortable admitting between our present explanation of unknowns with sayings such as "something cannot come from nothing" and early mankind's explanation of the sun as a god who drives a chariot of fire across the sky each day.

this makes no sense to me, so you'll have to help out... how is the word "nothing" contingent on man's understanding? the word has a meaning, after all... it's the absence of something, anything... if you say that our perception of nothing might not be all there is, that's one thing - but even if that's true it doesn't change the meaning of the word

[helene_t]

Winstonm, on Apr 4 2009, 02:38 PM, said:

It occured to me that although the language and ideas have become more sophisticated, that a statement such as "something cannot be created from nothing" - a conclusion based on man's limited understanding - is really a method for humans to account for an unexplainable phenomenon.

Maybe I am misinterpreting the "nothing comes from nothing" slogan, but I think it generally represents rational thinking: if something happens, it makes sense to look for the cause of it since that would make it easier to predict similar events in the future. Allowing things just to have happened because of "magic", "accident" or "the gods' untraceable wills" is not helpful, then one might as well not waste energy observing the events in the first place.

But in modern physics, so many things are contra-intuitive to laymen. What does "nothing" even mean? Is empty space "nothing", or does "nothing" means "not even space"? Is space filled with quantum fluctuation of positive and negative energy "nothing"? What about a hypothetical form of matter than cannot interact with ordinary matter, but under extreme circumstances such as Big Bang can turn into matter? If the Big Bang appears to mark the beginning of time, in what (if any) sense does it then "come from" anything (whether that "anything" could be "nothing" or not)?

[EricK]

"Something can't come from nothing" is obviously false if the "something" you are trying to explain is everything!

There is literally no other option but "nothing". Because any "something" is necessarily part of what you are trying to explain.

Another way to look at it is to realise that an explanation of some phenomenon or property must only contain things which themselves lack that property (so, for example, the explanation of wetness will not involve things which are themselves wet). So an explanation for existence will necessarily only be in terms of things which lack existence.

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on Apr 4 2009, 02:13 PM, said:

if the universe, hence time (which is a part of the universe), is actually infinite then it means an infinite regression can be traversed, which is not possible... an infinite temporal series of receding events occurring in nature would be an actual infinite, but this is incoherent... there are many analogies that demonstrate this, such as hilbert's hotel (though this is but one of many)... since ex nihilo nihil fit (assuming one accepts this), and since time isn't an actual infinite, whatever has always existed must be outside of and apart from time... it doesn't matter to me whether this entity, whatever it is, is called "God"... call it (or him) what you will

Thanks for clarifying what you mean on this point rather than asking more vague questions. Now I can respond more specifically.

Logic and mathematics are useful and powerful intellectual tools. Using mathematics and logic, we can describe through abstraction many features of the real world.

Once you get beyond tautologies, however, the accuracy of those descriptions is never a given. As science progresses, the intellectual tools we develop are refined to reflect a more refined understanding of the real world.

To say that a logical paradox (no matter how cleverly constructed) makes anything impossible in the real world is to claim that the tail wags the dog.

Yes, there are many interesting word games that you can play with infinity, and also with rules and meta-rules, as Bertrand Russell discussed at length. But you cannot draw conclusions about the real world from word games without further evidence. For example, there is nothing at all inconsistent about a world in which an infinite hotel cannot exist, but where time is infinite.

That's not to say that time actually is infinite either. It's convenient to treat time as starting with the big bang because that's where our information begins. It might be convenient also to treat time as infinite going forward. As for traversing an infinite amount of time, we never have to do that. We just go forward, looking back.

By the way, why do you accept the big bang, but reject evolution?

[Winstonm]

Quote

this makes no sense to me, so you'll have to help out... how is the word "nothing" contingent on man's understanding? the word has a meaning, after all... it's the absence of something, anything...

What I mean is that our word nothing may acually be a physical impossibility so when we say nothing we are simply saying "an unknown and unexplained state" or we use the word "nothing" to express a physical condition for which there is no present understanding or explanation. For example, we used to believe that space was a void; however, now the consideration is that space must hold something called dark matter. In other words, saying something cannot come from nothing may make for an amusing parlor game but the saying does not explain what does occur nor does it help move understanding forward. To me, it is like taking a trip in an intellectual automobile, running into a dead end road, and saying, "Well, that's the end of that," turning around and heading back instead of parking the car, getting out, and continuing the journey on foot. You can't find an answer unless you look for it.

So I am drawing a fine line here, that what you refer to as an impossibility from a logic argument perspective (something cannot come from nothing) is also true in the physical sense but it is our non-understanding of what "nothing" is comprised of that is the key - there never was a point in time or before time-space when there was nothing. You elect to call this phenomenon God - I simply say I don't know what occured, perhaps when universes contract into an immensely dense black hole the energy explodes and escapes into a new space-time rift and creates another universe.

[helene_t]

Hey Winston if you get tired of your current job you can always take up teaching philosophy, I think you would be god at it.

[Winstonm]

helene_t, on Apr 4 2009, 06:20 PM, said:

Hey Winston if you get tired of your current job you can always take up teaching philosophy, I think you would be god at it.

I am sincerely flattered.

[helene_t]

PassedOut, on Apr 4 2009, 11:46 PM, said:

For example, there is nothing at all inconsistent about a world in which in infinite hotel cannot exist, but where time is infinite.

W.r.t time, do you mean "finite" or do you mean "bounded"? The set of real numbers between zero and one is infinite but bounded. If the real numbers (or some other dense number set) is an accurate model for the timeline, then the set of time points from the big bang to the big crunch is infinite, but bounded.

I may be wrong but I can't see how boundedness could be a feature of time as it "really" is. Suppose your model of the world includes a real variable "time" which runs from -1 to +1, and my model includes a variable "taym" which is defined o.t.b. of your "time" by the equation
taym = ArcTan (time)

Then time is bounded while taym is unbounded, and yet they describe the same physical thing. The laws of nature which involve time will mathematically look different from those involving taym, One could dismiss one of the models because it is too "ugly", i.e. does not have the symmetry properties physicists like, but both models are equally valid and describe the same physics.

W.r.t finite vs infinite, I don't think our brains which can perceive only a finite number of bits can differentiate between infinite and "very large number", but if one believes in a truth "out there" which is independent from our perception, then it could be a meaningful question whether some set in the real world is finite or not. I am not saying it is a meaningful question (someone with more insight in physics might dismiss it), but from a pure philosophical point of view I don't see why it would have to be meaningless.