Argument from Mathematics

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente
**
Which would be great if it was true but it isn’t. LeMaitre even warned his pope not to draw that conclusion.**

Only because scientific confirmation of his theory was still lacking. However, by the time of LeMaitre’s death, the confirmation was pretty solid. Again, your ignorance of science history is transparent.

As usual, instead of addressing the corrective measure LeMaitre took with Einstein, which even Einstein admitted to finally, you have managed to mangle everything I have said beyond recognition. Does that never trouble your conscience?

 

[inocente]

inocente
**
Which would be great if it was true but it isn’t. LeMaitre even warned his pope not to draw that conclusion.**

Only because scientific confirmation of his theory was still lacking. However, by the time of LeMaitre’s death, the confirmation was pretty solid. Again, your ignorance of science history is transparent.

As usual, instead of addressing the corrective measure LeMaitre took with Einstein, which even Einstein admitted to finally, you have managed to mangle everything I have said beyond recognition. Does that never trouble your conscience?

Oh dear, ad hominems piled high again. Any chance of ever having a conversation without you calling me names?

While there is powerful evidence that there was indeed a big bang (red shift, cosmic microwave background, light elements, etc.), the theory predicts that space contracted to a singularity which destroyed all matter and so destroyed all possible evidence of what may or may not have gone before.

A lot of people, including some scientists, like to believe the singularity came out of nothing, but without any possibility of evidence we may never know.

(Some cosmologists question the theoretical zero of the predicted singularity, since it involves infinities, and infinities mean something is wrong with the theory somewhere, others think the universe came out of a black hole, and so on - there’s no certainty around the beginning).

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente
**
there’s no certainty around the beginning).**

Yes there is. There was a beginning. This is consistent with a theological view of Creation.

Carl Sagan in* Cosmos*, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

Genesis, 1200 B.C. : “In the beginning God said: ‘Let there be light.’”

As astronomer Robert Jastrow pointed out in God and the Astronomers.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

 

[inocente]

inocente
**
there’s no certainty around the beginning).**

Yes there is. There was a beginning. This is consistent with a theological view of Creation.

Carl Sagan in* Cosmos*, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

Genesis, 1200 B.C. : “In the beginning God said: ‘Let there be light.’”

As astronomer Robert Jastrow pointed out in God and the Astronomers.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

That’s not science and that’s not math, it’s just a bunch of words.

There is no evidence that the universe came from nothing, only opinions and speculations like you posted here.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

That’s not science and that’s not math, it’s just a bunch of words.

Not a clever reply.

The mathematics of Einstein’s relativity not only points to a created universe (a fact of which you seem woefully ignorant), but mathematics itself makes of abiogenesis the improbable likelihood that the first living cell appeared by pure chance rather than intelligent design.

 

[inocente]

inocente

That’s not science and that’s not math, it’s just a bunch of words.

Not a clever reply.

Your clever course of action will now be to link the research paper which you think proves your point.

The mathematics of Einstein’s relativity not only points to a created universe (a fact of which you seem woefully ignorant), but mathematics itself makes of abiogenesis the improbable likelihood that the first living cell appeared by pure chance rather than intelligent design.

Relativity doth not do any such thing, as Lemaitre himself pointed out to his pope, which is where we came in.

And while ID fans have claimed that before, it always turns out to be based on a lack of understanding of probability 101. Lemaitre believed that God is hidden, and faulty math is not a substitute for faith.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

**And while ID fans have claimed that before, it always turns out to be based on a lack of understanding of probability 101. Lemaitre believed that God is hidden, and faulty math is not a substitute for faith. **

We all believe that God is hidden.

And what is faulty about LeMaitre’s math? Even Einstein admitted LeMaitre’s superior math.

Read Ronald Clark’s classic biography, Einstein, especially the page references to LeMaitre.

 

[inocente]

inocente

**And while ID fans have claimed that before, it always turns out to be based on a lack of understanding of probability 101. Lemaitre believed that God is hidden, and faulty math is not a substitute for faith. **

We all believe that God is hidden.

And what is faulty about LeMaitre’s math? Even Einstein admitted LeMaitre’s superior math.

Read Ronald Clark’s classic biography, Einstein, especially the page references to LeMaitre.

It isn’t faulty, which is why Lemaitre warned his pope that his theory does not and cannot say whether the universe came from nothing.

This is where we came in on this thread, it’s all public domain, no point keep going over it like it might suddenly become untrue if you hit it enough times.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

Lemaitre warned his pope that his theory does not and cannot say whether the universe came from nothing.

That is not at all what he said. Why are you trying to rewrite history? Please show me the passage where LeMaitre told the pope the Big Bang theory does not and cannot say whether the universe came from nothing. Please be specific and don’t point to third hand sources.

What LeMaitre was concerned about was that his theory would get scrapped in the scientific community if all those atheist scientists thought the pope was promoting it.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. Evidence concerning the Big Bang kept rolling. The main point of the Big Bang is not to say whether the universe came from something or from nothing, but only to prove that the universe was created.

Why does it seem to irk you, a Baptist, that the universe was created? Or is it that you cannot stand the thought of a Catholic priest (LeMaitre) being the one who blew the whistle on Einstein’s decision to fudge the math?

 

[inocente]

inocente

Lemaitre warned his pope that his theory does not and cannot say whether the universe came from nothing.

That is not at all what he said. Why are you trying to rewrite history? Please show me the passage where LeMaitre told the pope the Big Bang theory does not and cannot say whether the universe came from nothing. Please be specific and don’t point to third hand sources.

What LeMaitre was concerned about was that his theory would get scrapped in the scientific community if all those atheist scientists thought the pope was promoting it.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. Evidence concerning the Big Bang kept rolling. The main point of the Big Bang is not to say whether the universe came from something or from nothing, but only to prove that the universe was created.

Why does it seem to irk you, a Baptist, that the universe was created? Or is it that you cannot stand the thought of a Catholic priest (LeMaitre) being the one who blew the whistle on Einstein’s decision to fudge the math?

It doesn’t irk me, facts are facts and it does not honor Lemaître to get his hypothesis wrong.

You keep spelling his name wrong, the M is not capitalized.

See here for quotes by him: catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8847

See here for a translation of his Primeval Atom (what Fred Hoyle called the big bang): scribd.com/doc/99059242/Lemaitre-The-Primeval-Atom-o

Lemaître’s hypothesis is and always has been for an expanding universe. Please give the page number where your think he proves a universe from nothing.

I also asked you to link any paper or evidence which you think scientifically proves a universe from nothing, but so far nada.

We just don’t know if there was anything before or not, and that fact cannot be changed by bluster or appeals. Please respond with mathematical proof or empirical evidence or we’re done, sorry but no amount of debate can change the facts.

 

[john_doran]

Lemaître’s hypothesis is and always has been for an expanding universe. Please give the page number where your think he proves a universe from nothing.

…

We just don’t know if there was anything before or not, and that fact cannot be changed by bluster or appeals. Please respond with mathematical proof or empirical evidence or we’re done, sorry but no amount of debate can change the facts.

well, the FL cosmological model entails that the universe had a beginning, which is the relevant point from a philosophical perspective.

that said, whatever might have preceded** this** iteration of the universe (e.g. previous cosmological oscillations) the borde-guth-vilenkin theorem does seem to tntail an absolute beginning to the (multi)verse.

 

[inocente]

well, the FL cosmological model entails that the universe had a beginning, which is the relevant point from a philosophical perspective.

that said, whatever might have preceded** this** iteration of the universe (e.g. previous cosmological oscillations) the borde-guth-vilenkin theorem does seem to tntail an absolute beginning to the (multi)verse.

In the site I linked Lemaitre is quoted as saying the question is metaphysical.

The BGV paper says “inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary in order to determine the correct conditions at the boundary [20]. This is the chief result of our paper.”.

In other words they don’t prove a beginning from nothing (in fact they speculate on what’s beyond the boundary), but they show that the boundary condition can’t be described without a new model.

I’m not a physicist but until there’s evidence multiverses are turtles all the way down to me.

 

[john_doran]

In the site I linked Lemaitre is quoted as saying the question is metaphysical.

exactly. because physical theories, by definition, become applicable only at t + n.

The BGV paper says “inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary in order to determine the correct conditions at the boundary [20]
. This is the chief result of our paper.”

sure, but it also says this: “we have shown under reasonable assumptions that almost all causal geodesics, when extended to the past of an arbitrary point, reach the boundary of the inflating region of spacetime in a finite proper time (finite affine length, in the null case).”

vilenkin is also more explicit (and more colloquial) in his book Many Worlds In One: "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (*Many Worlds in One *[New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176)

inocente:

In other words they don’t prove a beginning from nothing (in fact they speculate on what’s beyond the boundary), but they show that the boundary condition can’t be described without a new model.

i’m not sure what work you think the “from nothing” is doing in your assertion, but they prove that the universe (and multiverse of which our universe might simply be a vanishingly small part) must have a beginning. period.

inocente:

I’m not a physicist but until there’s evidence multiverses are turtles all the way down to me.

i guess i just don’t understand that psychology: the cosmological models involving oscillation and multiverses and quantum fluctuations, etc., are so speculative, esoteric, and themselves lacking any compelling empirical evidence in their favor, that belief in them (or the ultimate truth of a theory suitably like them) seems unavoidably to be the result not of thoroughgoing rationality, but a basic desire to avoid the implications of a beginning-in-time of the universe.

 

[inocente]

sure, but it also says this: “we have shown under reasonable assumptions that almost all causal geodesics, when extended to the past of an arbitrary point, reach the boundary of the inflating region of spacetime in a finite proper time (finite affine length, in the null case).”

That’s the inflating boundary and a few lines later they go on to say “inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary. This is the chief result of our paper.”.

vilenkin is also more explicit (and more colloquial) in his book Many Worlds In One: "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (*Many Worlds in One *[New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176)

They proved that inflationary models cannot describe an eternal universe. As I understand it the purpose of their paper was to show that cosmologists cannot escape that the cosmic beginning is an unsolved problem.

And of course that’s Vilenkin’s opinion anyway, other scientists write other books with other opinions.

i’m not sure what work you think the “from nothing” is doing in your assertion, but they prove that the universe (and multiverse of which our universe might simply be a vanishingly small part) must have a beginning. period.

“we have shown under reasonable assumptions that almost all causal geodesics, when extended to the past of an arbitrary point, reach the boundary of the inflating region of spacetime in a finite proper time (finite affine length, in the null case)”.

That’s not a proof and in any case the paper uses classical space-time, quantized may well tell a very different story. I’m not arguing that creatio ex nihilo is disproved or anything but simply that it isn’t proved and, methinks, is unfalsifiable against observation.

i guess i just don’t understand that psychology: the cosmological models involving oscillation and multiverses and quantum fluctuations, etc., are so speculative, esoteric, and themselves lacking any compelling empirical evidence in their favor, that belief in them (or the ultimate truth of a theory suitably like them) seems unavoidably to be the result not of thoroughgoing rationality, but a basic desire to avoid the implications of a beginning-in-time of the universe.

You understand I was making fun of it by saying turtles all the way down? - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

 

[john_doran]

They proved that inflationary models cannot describe an eternal universe. As I understand it the purpose of their paper was to show that cosmologists cannot escape that the cosmic beginning is an unsolved problem.

they showed that any physical theory based on GR or foundations in that neighbourhood, will have a finite past.

inocente:

And of course that’s Vilenkin’s opinion anyway, other scientists write other books with other opinions.

of course. the same is true of GR and quantum field theory. surely your point can’t be that it is therefore just as reasonable to discount the VBG theorem as it is to give it (provisional) assent.

inocente:

That’s not a proof and in any case the paper uses classical space-time, quantized may well tell a very different story. I’m not arguing that creatio ex nihilo is disproved or anything but simply that it isn’t proved and, methinks, is unfalsifiable against observation.

define “proof”. it represents (one of the best parts of) our best physical theories to date. which themselves haven’t been “proven”.

and of course a theory of quantum gravity (or some other as yet unimagined theory) might completely change the playing field, but again, i’m not sure what you take to be the significance of that fact.

if by “creation ex nihilo” you mean “the finite past of the universe”, then i would say that it most definitely has been proven by any reasonable standard of proof.

that said, i guess i’m not really sure what you’re ultimately trying to get-at in this thread.

You understand I was making fun of it by saying turtles all the way down? - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

lol - yes, i got the reference.

i just understood you to be saying something like “until someone proves that it’s physically impossible that the universe is past-eternal, i am going to continue to believe that the universe’s past is, in fact, eternal in duration .”

 

[inocente]

they showed that any physical theory based on GR or foundations in that neighbourhood, will have a finite past.

And yet they chose to call it “Inflationary spacetimes are not past-complete”.

of course. the same is true of GR and quantum field theory. surely your point can’t be that it is therefore just as reasonable to discount the VBG theorem as it is to give it (provisional) assent.

GR makes testable predictions, does the VBG?

*define “proof”. it represents (one of the best parts of) our best physical theories to date. which themselves haven’t been “proven”.

and of course a theory of quantum gravity (or some other as yet unimagined theory) might completely change the playing field, but again, i’m not sure what you take to be the significance of that fact.

if by “creation ex nihilo” you mean “the finite past of the universe”, then i would say that it most definitely has been proven by any reasonable standard of proof.*

While locating the pdf of the paper yesterday, Google also produced hits for the blogger William Lane Craig. By a remarkable coincidence he’s fond of the exact same paragraph from Vilenkin which you quoted, and treats VBG with the same zeal.

I’m not a physicist as I said but Borde, Guth and Vilenkin never got Nobels, never made prime-time, it’s not even as if inflation is the only show in town. And as they conclude “inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary. This is the chief result of our paper.”

Google also threw up a paper by Anthony Aguirre written four years after the BGV, called Eternal Inflation past and future. Such heresy, Craig should be informed!

that said, i guess i’m not really sure what you’re ultimately trying to get-at in this thread.

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” - Feynman‎

Point me at the experiment.

 

[john_doran]

And yet they chose to call it “Inflationary spacetimes are not past-complete”.

GR makes testable predictions, does the VBG?

any prediction concerning the beginning-state of the universe is in principle untestable; historical events are unrepeatable, since dates occur only once.

so, no, GR’s entailments concerning the original singularity are not testable. but so what? testability is neither necessary nor sufficient for truth.

inocente:

While locating the pdf of the paper yesterday, Google also produced hits for the blogger William Lane Craig. By a remarkable coincidence he’s fond of the exact same paragraph from Vilenkin which you quoted, and treats VBG with the same zeal.

and if i found the same passage being used in a spongebob cartoon or scrawled in a bathroom stall, what would that mean?

and i’m not sure “zeal” means what you think it means.

inocente:

I’m not a physicist as I said but Borde, Guth and Vilenkin never got Nobels, never made prime-time, it’s not even as if inflation is the only show in town. And as they conclude “inflation alone is not sufficient to provide a complete description of the Universe, and some new physics is necessary. This is the chief result of our paper.”

he also explains the results of the paper in the other passage i provided, which gives a more general entailment of the BGV theorem.

and surely you’re not suggesting that the only scientists to whom attention needs to be paid are nobel laureates.

inocente:

Google also threw up a paper by Anthony Aguirre written four years after the BGV, called Eternal Inflation past and future. Such heresy, Craig should be informed!

i have no idea what your point is here.

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” - Feynman‎

Point me at the experiment.

see my first point in this post: claims concerning the initial state of the universe are not capable of experimental confirmation. so what?

that said, if the rest of the (experimentally verified) physics is good, then it’s axiomatic that the other entailments of those physics are reliable.

and you didn’t explain what your general point is in this thread…is it that the universe must be eternal until and unless a nobel laureate physicist can provide an experimentally verified proof that the universe has a finite past?

 

[inocente]

any prediction concerning the beginning-state of the universe is in principle untestable; historical events are unrepeatable, since dates occur only once.

so, no, GR’s entailments concerning the original singularity are not testable. but so what? testability is neither necessary nor sufficient for truth.

and if i found the same passage being used in a spongebob cartoon or scrawled in a bathroom stall, what would that mean?

and i’m not sure “zeal” means what you think it means.

he also explains the results of the paper in the other passage i provided, which gives a more general entailment of the BGV theorem.

and surely you’re not suggesting that the only scientists to whom attention needs to be paid are nobel laureates.

i have no idea what your point is here.

see my first point in this post: claims concerning the initial state of the universe are not capable of experimental confirmation. so what?

that said, if the rest of the (experimentally verified) physics is good, then it’s axiomatic that the other entailments of those physics are reliable.

and you didn’t explain what your general point is in this thread…is it that the universe must be eternal until and unless a nobel laureate physicist can provide an experimentally verified proof that the universe has a finite past?

We seem to be going in circles here.

The world doesn’t appear to give the BVG paper the significance that you, Craig and creationwiki.org have claimed for it. Physicists don’t appear to have closed the door (I linked Anthony Aguirre’s paper). Even the BVG paper itself doesn’t claim to say anything more than inflation can’t find the starting conditions, new physics is needed (assuming inflation is indeed correct).

I already made my points on this thread: (a) that math is axiomatic and so cannot prove God, (b) Lemaitre’s primeval atom doesn’t provide an origin for its singularity, since as Lemaitre observed “any feature of matter before this beginning has been completely lost by the extreme contraction at the theoretical zero”.

I think that answers all your points, and that’s about all I have to say, thanks for the discussion