Eternal and Infinite Physical existence?

[phank]

As pancreasman said, we can trace our universe, and the rules, forces, etc. that apply within that universe, to the beginning of our universe. And there all of our concepts run out of context and become undefined. At that point there IS no time, no "before", no "eternal" no "something" or "nothing", no "magic", etc. These are ALL concepts meaningful ONLY in our universe. Logic itself is meaningful only within our universe. So stupid questions get stupid answers, and simple stupid questions get simple stupid answers.

I do not think JimL's questions are meaningful, I don't think his logic applies, and I don't think he's able to understand what this means.

[magellan004]

JimL remains polite, measured and thoughtful. That is unusual and hardly understandable in Natural Science.

Magellan

[magellan004]

A thought about space -
According to Big Bang force creates space, fills space. Space is a solid full of force.
Therefore perhaps force is continually creating space. For example a magnetic force might be creating space and into that space the force (or the reaction between force and space) creates the magnet. We see the magnet and think it came first.


Magellan

[seer]

Not really. I suspect I've already heard them. Most, if not all, are based on special pleading and/or logical fallacies.

But hey, if you can come up with a sound reason for treating the non-mundane events described in the gospel as accurate and historical, that isn't equally (in)applicable to other ancient documents such as the Koran or the Iliad, go ahead. I doubt you can. Mainly because I don't think you're capable of identifying fallacies or being objectively consistent.

Roy

Well first, I'm not sure that Homer didn't write the Iliad to be mythical. Second, I do believe that Muhammad may have encountered a being in that cave over those many weeks - or he lied. Of course one wonders what/who that being was. As far as special pleading in the NT - I doubt it... Any more than any other ancient work.

[Roy]

But hey, if you can come up with a sound reason for treating the non-mundane events described in the gospel as accurate and historical, that isn't equally (in)applicable to other ancient documents such as the Koran or the Iliad, go ahead. I doubt you can.

Well first, I'm not sure that Homer didn't write the Iliad to be mythical. Second, I do believe that Muhammad may have encountered a being in that cave over those many weeks - or he lied. Of course one wonders what/who that being was. As far as special pleading in the NT - I doubt it... Any more than any other ancient work.

And I was right - you couldn't.

Roy

[seer]

And I was right - you couldn't.

Roy

Of couse I did. The Song of Ilium is a poem, it is not clear whether Homer was attempting to produce historical narative or myth. There is no evidence that the NT writers were attempting to produce myth.

[seer]

As pancreasman said, we can trace our universe, and the rules, forces, etc. that apply within that universe, to the beginning of our universe. And there all of our concepts run out of context and become undefined. At that point there IS no time, no "before", no "eternal" no "something" or "nothing", no "magic", etc. These are ALL concepts meaningful ONLY in our universe. Logic itself is meaningful only within our universe. So stupid questions get stupid answers, and simple stupid questions get simple stupid answers.

I do not think JimL's questions are meaningful, I don't think his logic applies, and I don't think he's able to understand what this means.

This is nonsense. If we are really so clueless about all this then how can you conclude that "before" "eternal" "something" "nothing" are not meaningful?

[Leonhard]

Well, logically speaking, what other alternative do we have? The singularity is either eternal, is born of the eternal, or it magically puffed into existence.

Its a false dichotomy (logically speaking). Its possible that time is finite and beginningless. To properly talk about a beginning you have to talk about prior state where something didn't exist, and then a point of time where that thing began to exist. There was nothing prior to the singularity, in standard cosmology. Spacetime ends at that pointand there is nothing prior to it. The singularity didn't begin to exist, but the universe did after the singularity decayed.

If you can explain another possible alternative then I will accept that logic is not a good guide.

Ah, this is misquoting me JimL. I didn't say that logic was a bad guide, I said that your intuitions and the way things 'seemed' to you might not be a good guide in these matters. I've been arguing exclusively about what the consequences of the accepted theories of modern cosmology would be, which is somewhat different.

Your conclusion is that it doesn't make any sense to ask the question as to what was before the singularity because the singularity began at t=0 and so there was no before.

Correct.

And if there was "no before" previous to the singularity, then your own conclusion, unless you can explain otherwise, is that the singularity along with its nature of time must needs have magically puffed into existence.

Without a time prior to the singularity, the sentence "The singularity magically poofed into existence" doesn't make any straightforward sense. Atleast it doesn't to me. The image I'm seeing is that there's this dark void of nothingness, and then after some 'time' the singularity magically appears. Am I capturing your intuition correctly? This story doesn't make sense in light of general relativity, since there's no spacetime coordinates prior to the singularity. And its in terms of a reference frame inside a spacetime that we talk about time at all. So in what way could you talk about a 'nothingness' at a 'time' prior to the singularity, from which it magically poofed?

This is what I mean. Substituting the beginning of time for the beginning of the singularity, doesn't change or resolve the problem. Your conclusion is that it doesn't make any sense to ask the question as to what was before the singularity because the singularity began at t=0 and so there was no before. But if we ask the same question about t=0 itself you would apparently answer the same, that it is a nonsensensical question because there is no before t=0...(emphasis added)

This is confusing, are you talking about the singularity, or what? You seem to be talking about something other than the singularity since you use a 'but', or what are you talking about. What question? I can't answer the rest until you've clarified what you're talking about.

Its basically the same question. Your reasoning was that it makes no sense to ask what was before the singularity because the singularity began a t=0 and nothing can exist before t=0. Why not? Time zero defines only the beginning of our universe, it says nothing at all about before our universe.

Because in standard cosmology there isn't anything prior to the big bang singularity. Spacetime just terminates there, there's no further solutions for the equations. I'm not saying you can't construct other kinds of physics and contemplate what might happen if the things laws of physics were different in the right ways (which they might be). I'm talking about what it looks like from the physics and cosmology we do know. There's no time prior to t = 0. Sure you can write 't = -1s', but what exactly does this refer to? Its a nonsense number, since there's no solutions of the field equations prior to the big bang singularity.

[Leonhard]

So time never began? If it did - when?

First of all Seer there's a noxious ambiguity about what the word 'begin' here means. It could mean the earliest point of something, or it could denote a point before which something isn't and afterwhich it is. There is no prior to the singularity, but it is still the earliest point in the history of our universe in standard cosmology. So in this sense time 'began' at that point, but in the sense that its the earliest point in the history of our universe, not that it came into existence (because this implies that there was something prior which doesn't make sense).

I said neither because there was another solution to your question "So did time start before or after the Big Bang", though your sentence confuses an era for a point of time. If I rewrite your question as "So did time start before or after the singularity?" it should be obvious from what I've said that it couldn't be before the singularity, since I've denied that this could be the case in standard cosmology and it couldn't be after since there are definitely spacetime coordinates prior to points after the singularity. The only answer then is 'neither', since those were the only two options you presented.

[Leonhard]

But hey, if you can come up with a sound reason for treating the non-mundane events described in the gospel as accurate and historical, that isn't equally (in)applicable to other ancient documents such as the Koran or the Iliad, go ahead. I doubt you can.

Well first, I'm not sure that Homer didn't write the Iliad to be mythical. Second, I do believe that Muhammad may have encountered a being in that cave over those many weeks - or he lied. Of course one wonders what/who that being was. As far as special pleading in the NT - I doubt it... Any more than any other ancient work.

And I was right - you couldn't.

Of couse I did. The Song of Ilium is a poem, it is not clear whether Homer was attempting to produce historical narative or myth. There is no evidence that the NT writers were attempting to produce myth.

Uh, would you guys mind taking historical arguments about Jesus of Nazarath out into another thread?

[AlphaBravo]

There is no claim from the scientific perspective that our physical existence originated form absolutely nothing. At present the only evidence we have is for natural causes involving the nature of our physical existence. We have absolutely not evidence for any cause 'outside' nature.

The scientific high ground remains very strong, and the only game in town based on the evidence availble. The weakness here is 'arguing from ignorance,' without evidence, which does not work in this thread as per original post. Nor does it work in any logical argument including arguments for the existence of God(s).

Ok SD. I'm gonna bow out of this one and save it for a new thread. I posted before I read your OC and I recognize and sympathize with what you have been trying to do for the last 20 pages.

With respect to the philosophy of science I will say that I am inclined toward Jorge's post below. I don't think you are fairly distinguishing between evidence based science and the extrapolations of cosmologists which are not precluded by demonstrated science. Our scientific questions are fast outstripping our technological ability to answer them and that puts it in the realm of speculation. Don't we all wish that our predictions could be demonstrated at the next lunar eclipse.

In other words, this thread is a pure excursion into Fantasy Land.

Unless you wish to dismiss the 2LoT - which predicts an inevitable 'heat death' - the answer to
your quest looks like this : after a long time it's all over - The End... go home.

Anything beyond that is pure, unadulterated speculation - the kind that today is often called "science".

...

Jorge

[seer]

First of all Seer there's a noxious ambiguity about what the word 'begin' here means. It could mean the earliest point of something, or it could denote a point before which something isn't and afterwhich it is. There is no prior to the singularity, but it is still the earliest point in the history of our universe in standard cosmology. So in this sense time 'began' at that point, but in the sense that its the earliest point in the history of our universe, not that it came into existence (because this implies that there was something prior which doesn't make sense).

I said neither because there was another solution to your question "So did time start before or after the Big Bang", though your sentence confuses an era for a point of time. If I rewrite your question as "So did time start before or after the singularity?" it should be obvious from what I've said that it couldn't be before the singularity, since I've denied that this could be the case in standard cosmology and it couldn't be after since there are definitely spacetime coordinates prior to points after the singularity. The only answer then is 'neither', since those were the only two options you presented.

Do we agree that the universe or singularity are not infinte into the past?

[pancreasman]

Do we agree that the universe or singularity are not infinte into the past?

Perhaps there is no infinite past. I think that's the point.

[Leonhard]

Do we agree that the universe or singularity are not infinte into the past?

In standard cosmology, yes. The past would not extend infinitely far back.

[seer]

In standard cosmology, yes. The past would not extend infinitely far back.

ok, thanks