New or Used

[Devils' Advocate]

Certainly when we are speculating about what is, by definition, beyond our ability to answer, any honest person must accept that differing views can exist. And I would argue, should exist.

My issues are not so much trying to pin down what cannot be pinned down in the first place, i.e. is the universe finite or infinite, but rather the poor logical structure of many of the attempted explanations. The revised Kalam has as many problems as the original Kalam.

Namely one proposes a situation where the universe must have a finite past and then make up a arbitrary hypothetical as to how this is so.

Rather than go through a long schpeal again, let me just comment on the last statement, No. 6.

6: If no scientific explanation can provide a causal account of the origin of the universe, the cause must be personal (personal meaning 'in terms of the intentional action of a rational agent' – not – I cannot stress this enough – the God of faith).

The issue here is that they have taken one implausible account and replaced it with an equally implausible account. There is no difference between saying the universe appeared on its own versus a being outside the universe caused it to appear. In each case the universe appeared from outside this reality, the only difference is if we say it was causal or not causal.

No way to know the answer, of course. To me both are equally probable and equally improbable. To give one explanation more weight than the other is supported by nothing other than personal preference. Or so it seems to me.

 

[wil]

6: If no scientific explanation can provide a causal account of the origin of the universe, the cause must be personal (personal meaning 'in terms of the intentional action of a rational agent' – not – I cannot stress this enough – the God of faith).

Nah...it could just mean that science doesn't have the explanation yet...not proof of something else.

Bacteria, viruses, cancer, killed us for thousands of years before science found out what was killing us...

Science didn't exist to allow us to fly...but that doesn't mean only birds can fly...just we didn't get there yet....

 

[Thomas]

In the world of positive integers... there is a finite beginning. 1 and an infinite ending.

Quite. But 'number' is a construct, and it depends whether we're talking cardinal numbers, which tell us 'how many', such as how many years old the universe is, they're 'counting numbers' which infer quantity...

Or ordinal numbers which tell of the order of things in a set – first, second, third, etc. Ordinal numbers are not quantitative per se, but qualitative, showing rank or position.

(Some see the '6 days' of creation in a cardinal sense, in a hierarchy of time. Others (myself included) see the six as 'ordinal' in the sense of priority and therefore dependency, in that the first 'contains' all that follows.)

Or did 1 always exist?

Depends how you think of '1'.

Is it possible that a finite beginning always existed?

Depends what you mean by 'always existed'.

Taking the point that prior to 'the beginning' there was nothing, then there's nothing to measure this beginning against as a backstop. If we rewind the movie of the universe, we get a cosmos shrinking into an infinitely dense 'point', that point containing all time, all space, and everything in it, there is nothing other-than-it. The point is that in the sense that all 'space' and all 'time' is compressed into an infinite point – infinite because we cannot number anything other-than-it.

The multi-universe theory doesn't really help. Even if we allow for an infinite number of universes, they are all the same by the common property of universe, that is, the 'multi' is a collective of a given object, in this instance 'universe'. So we end up with a single, meta-universe which contains within it every possible instance of universe.

Now ... if we suppose an infinite number of universes, we can suppose one more universe, and by the same token, one less. So we have to allow an infinite one-more number of universes, but then we also have to allow an infinite one-less number universes until we arrive at ... no universes at all.

Hence the metaphysicians' question, why is there anything? And the answer, 'well, there just is' has never proved adequate. No child, even at the end of asking an infinite number of 'why's?', will ever settle for the adults's exasperated answer of 'that's just the way it is!'

Philosophy (and metaphysics is just a branch of philosophy) looks to what is called 'the ground' – that from which the universe, or any number of universes, are in principle. The ground is that which all universes, despite any and every disparity, have in common; that which determines them as universes. But although the ground determines the variable nature of the universes, the universes do not determine the ground, any more than an effect can be its own cause.

To cut to the metaphysical chase, we can argue that the ground is in essence, no more than the universes that rise from it. That is, their rising is just 'in the nature of things' and not because of any determinate agency of the ground as such. The ground then is not God, but simply an underlying substrate, a kind of 'quantum vacuum' from which the universe seems to spring 'as if from nowhere'.

So we arrive at a 'brute' universe: Why is it? There is no 'why', it just is. There is no determinate cause, no determinate end, and no real purpose to anything in between, other than to be. But then we are obliged to accept, in terms of meaning, that there is no point to the universe. It just is. It has no meaning, other than itself, and has no purpose, other than itself. It possesses no value, other than its is-ness.

So no 'mystical states' of knowing and being. No 'one-ness', all-in-all. No secret to 'life, the universe and everything'. There is no reason, no point, no purpose to life other than what we appoint for it ... it's not that there is a meaning, it's just that we can't make sense of life without one.

In which case that – the pursuit of meaning – can only be seen, for us, as utterly unnecessary and irrelevant and, I'd have to say in light of our history so far, an absolutely fucking awful aberration.

Nothing to 'grok'. No 'enlightenment'. All such notions are mere intellectual abstractions. If one were being hard on a Buddhist philosophy, there is no enlightenment because there is nothing to be enlightened about. Capital 'E' Enlightenment is an illusion. You are already illumined, you just don't know it, because you think it's something else.

You are bound to suffering because by seeking a release from what is, you develop attachments to illusions of release, which are in reality nothing more than the cause of more suffering. Bliss, a state beyond suffering is, in fact, a chimera. Bliss is just that transitory state when, if you are lucky enough, you do not happen to be suffering noticeably at that moment. It is ephemeral and itself heightens your suffering when its gone. Nothing more than that.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment ... Or, as the Christians say, 'The monk's life is toil. Toil is what a monk is.'

If, however, we allow a determinate cause, that is a cause towards an end, then that is what the extended KCA means by 'person'. It does not, let me stress, imply God as person as presented by the Abrahamic Tradition.

It does not, for example, infer a God who is a moral agent, although it does imply for us a moral dimension. Good then is that which pertains towards its determined end. Bad is that which deflects from that end, hence the idea of 'sin' or 'missing the mark' ... but I'm treading perhaps too close to theology here...

+++

RIDER
This has been a stream-of-consciousness fingers tapping keys exercise. I have not pre-thought (in detail) nor as yet reflected on what I have written. I might disown the lot...

So ... for the moment ... don't assume I've nailed my colours to the mast.

If nothing else, two things:
1: It might well indicate where my philosophy has gone off the rails and
2: It might well point to my Catholicism as not being the kind of Catholicism one assumes of a Catholic.

 

[Devils' Advocate]

And as horrific as it may be to some, it is possible, entirely possible, that there is no point to the universe except that it is. And before the human animal arose, there was no meaning to life other than reproduction.

I was kinda alluding to this in a different thread when I asked why it took God so long to get around to making humans. Before us there is 14 billion years where the universe had no purpose except to exist.

Even when advanced life arose there was still no point except to exist. The dinosaurs stomped around for 160 million years, but they never looked at the stars and wondered about creation. The rise of the mammals brought a whole new form of life to dominance, but for most of that time no mammal ever wondered what might exist after this life.

It wasn't until the last second of the cosmic calendar that a creature came along to ask the big questions about why we are here. What is the purpose to it all? Is there nothing more than here?

Except for this past second of the cosmic calendar, the universe truly did exist just to exist.

 

[wil]

Thomas, to cool! Now go directly to the theology section and continue your random stream of consciousness typing...lets see what else comes thru your fingers...

Then when your fingers run out of things to say..re read what you wrote (here)....as if someone else wrote it...and respond...

The above are suggestions, obviously, not orders (as they sort of sound like)...but I surely would like to read both...

 

[Thomas]

No way to know the answer, of course. To me both are equally probable and equally improbable. To give one explanation more weight than the other is supported by nothing other than personal preference. Or so it seems to me.

Agreed ... but I then don't quite see why you come down so heavily on one implausibility, other than it's not your favoured version, because that implausibility is no more nor less implausible than the version you favour?

I'm not refuting your argument, it's rather that I think I'm missing something.

I do think the 'must' in clause 6 overstates the case, and I think Craig definitely overstates the case when he determines this first cause must and can only be (if indeed that's what he does) the God of the Bible.

But on the other hand, much as cosmology might appear to invalidate the First Mover hypothesis (the ground of the KCA) but I do find a stronger reason to look dubiously on the infinity 'turtles all the way down' argument.

As for all the answers contained within the Big Bang, that the Big Bang explains it all, there too I find a paradox.

All the laws of nature, we are told, are subsequent to the Bang. In fact, in the very earliest moments, it seems necessary that a set of laws existed that were temporary, to enable the singularity to get from itself, to the point where the laws of nature could operate ... hmmm ...

But the point remains that laws, conditions, states, etc. are all subsequent. We can, and we can never know, for there was no, prior condition.

Science 'discovers' by discovering a prior state of affairs to explain the current state of affairs. In that sense there is a 'metaphysical' dimension to physics. Two balls, one massive larger than the other, dropped from a height, fall at the same rate. Why is that? So science looks 'behind' to see what's going on.

In time science will have sufficient reason to explain how the Big Bang occurred.

And then some little brat will tug at the hem of his white coat and ask, 'Why?'

Again, the idea of infinite repetition, bang, expansion, collapse, bang, like some single stroke engine chugging along, is a cop-out, it's just another 'turtles' evasion.

So working round the houses, I suggest it is possible to present a contemporary version of the First Mover Hypothesis – I dare you to do it! – as a viable response to the question why is there anything at all, at least it's equally as viable as the 'there just is' response.

Or am I really missing something?

 

[Thomas]

And as horrific as it may be to some, it is possible, entirely possible, that there is no point to the universe except that it is. And before the human animal arose, there was no meaning to life other than reproduction.

Yes.

I was kinda alluding to this in a different thread when I asked why it took God so long to get around to making humans. Before us there is 14 billion years where the universe had no purpose except to exist.

In my stream I kinda alluded to an idea of God that doesn't quite work in the way that simple Abrahamic interpretation tends to present.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

But the point remains that laws, conditions, states, etc. are all subsequent. We can, and we can never know, for there was no, prior condition.

Hmmm, could you explain this to me? I can see that nothing we can know or measure, or even ever know or measure, might have existed prior to to the Bang. But could there not have been forces contributing to the Bang and the results of the Bang? Could these forces still shape energy and matter? Could they be theoretically knowable?

Or am I missing what you're trying to say?

 

[Thomas]

Question for those of a scientific bent –

In my stream above, I edited out more than I put in. One edit was an analogy about the nature of time and the infinite, and a way of looking at 'in the beginning'. Just now I've been looking at a review of Hawking's new book, and there was an analogy there which I thought was bloomin' close to what I had said.

So can I run the analogy passed you guys, to see if its the same?
And if it is, can I have my Nobel Prize, please? (Not really. I did read all of A Brief History of Time, and this bit stuck, but it might have stuck wrong.)

From The Grand Design:

Suppose the beginning of the universe was like the South Pole of the earth, with degrees of latitude playing the role of time. As one moves north, the circles of constant latitude, representing the size of the universe, would expand. The universe would start as a point at the South Pole, but the South Pole is much like any other point. To ask what happened before the beginning of the universe would become a meaningless question, because there is nothing south of the South Pole. In this picture space-time has no boundary—the same laws of nature hold at the South Pole as in other places (pp. 134-5).

As best as I can remember, my analogy went something like this:

Suppose, for a moment, a theological creatio ex nihilo, an absolute nothingness. Then creation, the Singularity, the Big Bang. And Wil exists ...

This bit I understood from ABHOT:
Imagine a vertical line, the top going on forever, the bottom starting at the moment of the Big Bang. Now imagine a 'V' sitting on that start point, indicating spatial expansion, up and out, like a cone.

Or imagine a dot – the Singularity – and a Big Bang and a sphere that expands out from the dot with the speed of a cosmic airbag ...

If I get Hawking right, it's not like that. He said don't think of a 'V', but rather think of a 'U'. So you have the Singularity, and at the moment it pops, all space is there – it's not 'space' expanding in a vacuum, it's matter expanding into space, and the space into which the matter is expanding was there, right from the start ... the universe, in the sense of its dimension, was there all at once.

This is my bit:

Singularity. Big Bang, and Wil pops into existence.

From the moment of Wil's beginning, Wil is conscious, and his consciousness registers as activity, movement, of his mind. So Wil is conscious of thought, and of thinking, and thus process, movement, and time. He can try and think back to his first thought, his first moment, and he can call that 'ground zero', and anything after that increases incrementally, in time...

But if he looks back, there is no backstop. That is, there's no backdrop, no curtain, no magicians hat, from which Wil emerged. There was nothing before Wil, so there's nothing to measure before Wil, so Wil will see the 'past' stretching infinitely back down his 'rabbit hole' analogy.

But there was a beginning.

Does that make sense, or am I off my rocker?

A corollary to this is that as all 'space' is contained, in the beginning, or the moment before the beginning, in an infinitely dense Singularity, then so is time. In the Singularity, time is in the same way, infinitely compressed, so that if you could journey into the Singularity, you could never transit across it, because in it, space and time is infinitely compressed, so much so that your movement would become infinitely slow. You'd be moving at the speed of light, one could say, but not going anywhere, and with no sense of movement, there's be no sense of time.

 

[wil]

Before I can answer, who or what is 'wil' in your metaphor?


(as I see things we are the sum total of our experiences, including the things we read, contemplate, 'know'. I believe when you stream your thought as you do you are allowing that to all coalesce, combining that which will, setting aside that which doesn't)

I see G!d as principle....not as an entity, but as that 'law' (like gravity, relationship between planets, curve of time, how sin and actions and reactions interact with physical or even cosmic response) now did that principle exist prior to time when principle or law was required?

If that is your question....it is a good one.

 

[Thomas]

Hmmm, could you explain this to me?

I'm nor sure I can explain it to me!

I can see that nothing we can know or measure, or even ever know or measure, might have existed prior to to the Bang.

Let me clarify what I think you're saying ...

"I can see that nothing we can know or measure, or even ever know or measure, about the state that might have existed prior to to the Bang."

To which I answer yes, because there was no state. It's tricky, a slippery concept because language falls down... because we can only conceptualise 'nothing' as a 'void state', but still a state. Nothing infers a quality predicated of a state.

But could there not have been forces contributing to the Bang and the results of the Bang? Could these forces still shape energy and matter? Could they be theoretically knowable?

Well if there were conditions – a state – prior to the Big Bang, then we are saying there is a causal chain of which the Big Bang is an effect of the prior set of conditions.

So that just pushes the question back. What brought about that state, those conditions, prior to the Big Bang?

Some might argue that science that demonstrates an atom can be in two places at once, of that in the Quantum realms, particles appear out of nothing, with no apparent cause. But that's not quite right. particles appear in the Quantum Vacuum, but the Quantum vacuum is a state, a set of conditions, it's not nothing.

Does that make sense?

In all honesty, the only answer we can come up with is "I don't know."

So we hypothesise.

One hypothesis is infinite regress, just the process of coming to be and passing away, of fleas and flies, of you and me, of entire universes.

Another hypothesis is First Cause.

Such a First Cause necessarily has to be Causeless. God just is. Secularists cry 'unfair!', and quite rightly. It's claiming for God what they claim for the universe, but without any scientific foundation in empirical demonstration. It's a 'stand alone' theory, but it is derived from the scientific principle, affirmed by observation and analysis, that everything appears to have a cause.

So you end up with Anselm's 'God is that which nothing greater can be thought'.

It's a thought, but it's not a proof.

Science's 'problem' is that it works according to the principle that logical proofs can be determined by demonstration. Science theorises what gravity is, from observation, apples fall from trees, but can only prove it by dropping apples on people's heads. One theory was the the tree throws the ripe apple away. We now know that's not quite it. Likewise that sight was a ray from the eye that illuminates everything in its ken. Optics has shown that to be wrong.

But God, according to its definition, transcends all physical determination, therefore is not subject to physical inquiry. It's not a cop out at all. It's just that it proposes a thesis that science is unable to quantify, and therefore science does a rather 'sour grapes' reaction.

Some people here talk about God as 'energy' are just grabbing at a baseline physicality as if that was a proof or or evidence pointing towards God. It ain't.

God is not the Quantum Vacuum.

Read Hawking's comments on the Higgs potential.

And someone at Cern said, "We need a bigger collider... "

But I'm meandering again ...

 

[Thomas]

Before I can answer, who or what is 'wil' in your metaphor?

You, or me, or a rock or rabbit ... it doesn't matter.

I see G!d as principle...

Well so does traditional Christianity. John opens his Gospel by repeating the first words of the Hebrew Scriptures. Both start 'In the beginning', but John starts En arche, which implies not a temporal beginning, but the ground or principle of everything. The Hebrew translated as 'In the beginning' is re'shiyth which has the same meaning, and does not mean a temporal beginning necessarily, or exclusively.

But traditional Christianity also sees God as transcending Principle. So does Greek Philosophy. Anaximander calls it Aperion or 'The Boundless', the Fathers say the Son is arche (principle), the Father is 'arche anarchos' (the One without rule upon it).

Or Aristotle, the Prime Mover that is not itself moved ...

Not to get bogged down here, but it is precisely because we see God as the ground or principle of all being (Divine Immanence), whilst Himself not determined, contained or conditioned (Divine Transcendence), that the Incarnation (the first miracle that set the template for all the rest) can happen without subverting the laws of nature, or 'doing the impossible'.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Well if there were conditions – a state – prior to the Big Bang, then we are saying there is a causal chain of which the Big Bang is an effect of the prior set of conditions.

Here I see what you were saying in the last post. Personally I like the idea that there was something before, but that it is indefinable for something that is made up of this. Something like the fourth dimension I mentions earlier.

 

[Devils' Advocate]

Whew! So many good statements. It will take me hours to catch up. So bit by bit…

First Thomas' description of Hawking's view of the universe as starting at a point on the South Pole. I believe you did misunderstand what Hawking was saying, though to be fair, most of us haven't a clue what he is saying most of the time! Hah!

But. Hawking wasn't describing an origin of the universe with that statement. He was describing how it could be that something started at a single point, but as it expanded, it just became another point like every other point on the globe. I.E. there is no way to find the original point of the Big Bang because it looks like every other point. Also he was not speaking of a U shape, but rather as the bottom of a ball which is building itself like slices, piece by piece, until you have a complete three dimensional ball.

At least that is my understanding. Actually I do not really like this example as it causes as much confusion as anything else. And yes I really do have the hubris to say Hawking chose a poor explanation. My bad.

The best analogy we have to explain how the Big Bang happened is still the balloon analogy. It is a two dimension example, but it explains perfectly why there is no way to point to a spot in space and say "It Banged there".

One takes a slightly inflated balloon. Use a magic marker and mark dots all around it. Now continue to blow up the balloon. As the balloon expands, the dots move further apart from each other.

Each dot represents a galaxy. And if we are only dealing with length & width, no depth, then anywhere in the universe you might be, everywhere you look everything is moving away from you. The Bang would in essence be at the center of the inside of the balloon. But since we do not have depth, it is not a direction we can look.

What is also fascinating about this example is that it shows another aspect of space time. The points may be getting further and further apart, but the points (galaxies) themselves are not moving at all. The space between points is getting larger and larger.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

First Thomas' description of Hawking's view of the universe as starting at a point on the South Pole. I believe you did misunderstand what Hawking was saying, though to be fair, most of us haven't a clue what he is saying most of the time! Hah!

I think Thomas got it right, at the start of the quote it says 'beginning of the universe'. If we include the part right before Thomas selection I think it's clear that we're talking about time specifically.

Jim Hartle and I realized that time can behave like another direction in space under extreme conditions. This means one can get rid of the problem of time having a beginning, in a similar way in which we got rid of the edge of the world.

From: The Origin of the Universe - Stephen Hawking

 

[Thomas]

The best analogy we have to explain how the Big Bang happened is still the balloon analogy. It is a two dimension example, but it explains perfectly why there is no way to point to a spot in space and say "It Banged there".

One takes a slightly inflated balloon. Use a magic marker and mark dots all around it. Now continue to blow up the balloon. As the balloon expands, the dots move further apart from each other.

Each dot represents a galaxy. And if we are only dealing with length & width, no depth, then anywhere in the universe you might be, everywhere you look everything is moving away from you. The Bang would in essence be at the center of the inside of the balloon. But since we do not have depth, it is not a direction we can look.

What is also fascinating about this example is that it shows another aspect of space time. The points may be getting further and further apart, but the points (galaxies) themselves are not moving at all. The space between points is getting larger and larger.

Ker-ching! Thank you!

And hey ... maybe it's not Hawking's fault, maybe it's a software glitch Did I just say that?

 

[Devils' Advocate]

Thomas in Italics. My response plain text.

Agreed ... but I then don't quite see why you come down so heavily on one implausibility, other than it's not your favoured version, because that implausibility is no more nor less implausible than the version you favour?

Hmmmm. Let me ponder that for a few... Okay back. I think it is less plausible that some cosmic consciousness existing outside space/time could exist to start this process. I’m willing to admit that my Deist belief structure is probably getting in the way of my objectivity.

But on the other hand, much as cosmology might appear to invalidate the First Mover hypothesis (the ground of the KCA) but I do find a stronger reason to look dubiously on the infinity 'turtles all the way down' argument.

Again, the idea of infinite repetition, bang, expansion, collapse, bang, like some single stroke engine chugging along, is a cop-out, it's just another 'turtles' evasion.

Wil is the one who likes the turtles all the way down concept. He believes, from my understanding anyway, of an endlessly recycling universe which bangs, collapses, bangs, collapses forever.

I do not hold to that theory. Nor is it the popular theory accepted nowadays. The current cosmological standard is that it all started in darkness, and it will all end in darkness. That is, before the Big Bang there was nothing. Not even space. The Bang created space and time. As the universe expands, space is spreading into - what? No one knows. Space is expanding into nothing far as we know.

Right now, the forces that hold things together are strongest, which is why we have the structure of the universe we do.

As the universe continues aging, though, the force (dark energy) that causes things to separate will become stronger and stronger. Ripping apart galaxies, solar systems, planets, to the point where it is strong enough to separate the individual particles of an atom. And then even those particles.

The end result is darkness. An infinite darkness full of energy that has become so diffuse that it is nonexistent for all intents and purposes. Such is the fate of this reality according to the latest theories.

 

[Thomas]

Hey ... look ... no-one's pissed with me! And we're talking cosmology, Oh Joy! Haha!

(Thinks: I wonder if I got away with the very un-PC 'software glitch' comment. Haha, un-PC, software glitch, geddit!
SFX chorus of groans (DA, ACOT, W, ED): "Oh, for the love of Mike!" )

 

[Thomas]

Thomas in Italics. My response plain text.

Thanks again, and a fair argument all round. Perhaps I should try and get to your Deist belief structure ... but not here. Nor now. I'm supposed to be doing something else.