Could the Universe have Created Itself?

[johnweeder]

The physicists are discovering “ex nihilo”.

Don’t bother Jaaanosik. You will learn he simply refuses to accept scientific evidence.

I believe he has made a cursory study of Aquinas. And like the old saying “if one only has a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”, he will simply try to crudely bludgeon any point you might make by vaguely invoking the ghost of Aquinas.

 

[kmcarl56]

The universe is a machine. The earth is a machine. Every living organism, including us, is a machine. All of these machines work around the clock to keep the whole mass working in accordance to God’s wishes. So why not just accept that God created the universe as we know it to be?

That IS our faith, right?

…I’m really not worried very much about what scientists, theoreticists, philosophers, or anyone else believes or wants to conjure up… My God created it all.

:extrahappy:

 

[catholictiger]

it depends

our universe could have been created by science

or God created it.

it is possible that there is a multiverse and our universe came from that universe so God didn’t directly create us.

But God created the cosmos the cosmos can’t create itself.

 

[smichhertz]

Assuming we’re taking the classic philosophical definition of the universe, God created it.

Never in my experience have I witness something create itself. So I don’t think the universe did.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Allow that the universe created itself. The next question: Why would it create itself?

Or as Leibniz put it: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

 

[EphelDuath]

I don’t think people in this thread are talking about the same thing.

Physically speaking, it’s demonstrated that matter can come into existence from nothing, so long as corresponding antimatter does somewhere else in the universe at the same time. That doesn’t mean the universe can have created itself – because metaphysically, the principles which govern the universe had to have come from somewhere. We commonly call this first cause “God”.

So even though Aquinas didn’t live to see all of the modern discoveries of physics, that changes nothing about what he wrote. His primary argument for the existence of God is based upon a necessary metaphysical causality; NOT that according to the scientific knowledge of his day, there can’t have been matter from nothing. He actually acknowledges the possibility that matter has always existed, since that is what was believed by Aristotle:

By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist, as was said above of the mystery of the Trinity (32, 1). The reason of this is that the newness of the world cannot be demonstrated on the part of the world itself.

Summa theologiae I, Q. 46, art. 2

 

[Paddy_Walker]

I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but scientists have inserted synthetic DNA into cells. I.e. they designed DNA, built it and stuck it in a cell. I suppose theoretically, one could also assemble the cell itself.

Note I am careful not say this was the “creation of life” in the sense of Catholic dogma. I’d be foolish to speculate on the theological nature of such a thing. If I clone me, have I created new life? If I use (hypothetical and non-existent) machines to create an exact copy of my DNA, and then insert it in an artificially manufactured cell and grow this into a full me, then what is the thing I would have done?

If we find life beneath the ice on Europa, for example, what does that mean with regards to Catholic dogma? Or what if we find life in another solar system?

More bizarrely, if the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is correct, then what are the "me"s in each of the many worlds?

One can even look inward at our own cell and find intrigues. There is evidence that each cell in your body hosts what was once a separate life form… mitochondria. Think of it as if a flu virus invaded your body, but instead of causing havoc, it created a new better, variation of life. I only bring this up to cause you to ponder that the mysteries of creation are much deeper than you may have imagined.

So, did the earth evolve multiple separate life forms but they merged to lead to us? If so, who says that that simply wasn’t Gods will from his original creation of the universe?

You see, I’m thinking about that time when the earth was young and molten and even the rocks were in the sky as vapour. It was that hot.
So no life or anything but inorganic molecules could have existed on earth then. But since then there was an explosion of life. But. Not, it seems many explosions of life, just the one. And it spread and mutated from there.
But the earth could not have formed that life back then because if it could have it would continue to do so today and yesterday and tomorrow. But it does not.

So scientists creating or reorganizing things doesn’t impress me. what would impress me would be seeing pure elements of the periodic table poured into a sealed jar, given a little shake and watching new life create itself.

Now the universe was itself in the same state as the earth was in its early existence, hot and under pressure and no organic molecules could have survived in the early universe. They could not have travelled ‘over’ from another dimension or multiverse universe. They would not have survived the early universe.
Neither could the idea of an organic molecule travel to this universe because such an idea is not a thing, it does not exist.
So how do dry, pure elements configure themselves into life. And why do they do it only once if it is such a normal, natural thing to happen?

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Food for thought…

The wave function exists. It may not be meaningful to go beyond that. Schroendinger’s Cat is, perhaps, best thought of as both half dead and half alive.

In a many worlds interpretation, even though the “system” does not exist in this world, it may exist in another. So, no “system” (at least not here) but a “state” in so much as it does exist in some worlds and it’s absence in our world is merely indication of a zero valued wave function here/now.

Consider that even “empty” space has a state in the sense that Heisenberg insures we can’t know the position and momentum of it with complete accuracy.

Does this apply outside the bounds of this universe? Can we even know that? What about in 'branes in bulk? Or the other universes in the multiverse?

We could decay to a state with a lower zero point energy. We could expand into an empty deSitter space. We could collapse into a singularity. Given the correct value for the cosmological constant, we could reach steady state.

Regardless, though, entropy is increasing (the “heat death” you speak of). Even if I live in this universe “forever”, eventually entropy maximizes and no more “work” can be done. However, this is not strictly death… more likely it would be experienced as time asymptotically slowing to a stop while I dissolved into a pea soup where each perturbation was outside the light cone of all others. Ok… yeah, if that isn’t death, it’s certainly worse.

But the cat, whether dead or alive, is actually there. The information about whether or not it is dead or alive may not have taken a definite value, but the cat is still a thing that is there (though whether it is there in the form of a dead cat or an alive cat may not be accessible outside of its box).

If there are many worlds, and if there is a wave function that spans many worlds that has not caused certain matter to appear in ours, then this is the case of a thing (whatever it is the wave function describes - be it physical object, abstract system, whatever) that spans more than one world modifying how our world appears. This would not be he case of a thing creating itself. This would be the case of a system that’s already there that spans multiple worlds simply evolving in time.

“Nothing” is not the absence of matter and/or energy. If a thing can be talked about as having a real effect on anything, then it is not nothing. If a law can affect things, it is not nothing. If a quantum state is really there, then it (or whatever has that state) is not nothing, even if it hasn’t manifested matter right now and may later. If you can intelligently say that it effects something, then it is not nothing. If it can create, then it can effect things. So if it can create, it is not nothing.

To really speak about death meaningfully requires a spiritual approach, I think. But from a merely physical point of view, I think an inert body could count as death. And while it is possible that the world persists forever, all evidence suggests that this is not what will happen.

 

[Linux]

My question was purely rhetorical. Linus2nd uses Aquinas’s mere name as a crude bludgeon to assert his position is correct. Never any specific reference, just statements like “Have you read Aquinas?”

What I attempted to do, perhaps badly, was offer that since Aquinas did not know of our science, that is it not meaningful to use his work as an attempt to disapprove something that I offered merely as an observational scientific fact (or at least as a widely accepted and consistently supported theory). For example, the Casimir Effect.

I would extend that (and you can follow up on wiki but I will offer a quote) Aquinas’ views are not without controversy. He started with a position and then adjusted his arguments to prove it. He was not interested in the truth so much as justifying Catholic dogma (although one could argue they are the same thing).

The quote I promised: “Aquinas’ views of God as first cause, cf. quinque viae, ‘depend upon the supposed impossibility of a series having no first term. Every mathematician knows that there is no such impossibility; the series of negative integers ending with minus one is an instance to the contrary.’”

I do not intend to imply Aquinas was not brilliant or that he was wrong. As man, he was obviously wrong sometimes. Certainly, I will not claim I am anything like his equal. However, I also do not believe Aquinas would have claimed he was an expert on 21st century applied or theoretical physics. Nor do I believe that merely invoking his name somehow justifies a particular position.

Linus’s particular interpretation of a Aquinas is that creation only happened once, and that the actualization of potency does not involve the creation of something from nothing.

This is his pet theory. He will be every hurt if he finds out that he does not know Aquinas as well as he purports to. I think he would lose his sanity if he found out that Aquinas actually disagrees with him. So be easy on him okay?

 

[Linux]

Allow that the universe created itself. The next question: Why would it create itself?
"

Its a practical Joke?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Linux

**Its a practical Joke? **

On whom?

 

[inocente]

Feser says, " The bulk of the book is devoted to exploring how the energy present in otherwise empty space, together with the laws of physics, might have given rise to the universe as it exists today. This is at first treated as if it were highly relevant to the question of how the universe might have come from nothing—until Krauss acknowledges toward the end of the book that energy, space, and the laws of physics don’t really count as “nothing” after all. Then it is proposed that the laws of physics alone might do the trick—though these too, as he implicitly allows, don’t really count as “nothing” either. "

One would think these guys would apologize for attempting to hood wink the gullible masses. But as long as the $$ keep flowing in, why should they.

Not sure if Krauss has ever heard of Feser. He’s an atheist, Feser isn’t, and they’re equally good at sneering, but Feser may just be jealous that he’s not in such demand as Krauss on the lecture circuit. (Perhaps because Feser only has 4 awards while Krauss has 14 major and umpteen other awards according to their CVs, for those who go in for authority figures.)

I’ve not read Krauss’ book either, but he does give an entertaining lecture of the same name if you can stand that it’s to an atheist audience with an intro by some guy named Richard Dawkins D), on YouTube here - youtube.com/watch?v=0ZiXC8Yh4T0.

If you start viewing from 11 minutes in, Krauss gives an aside about Monsignor Lemaître, who first developed big bang theory, and Lemaître’s warning to Pope Pius XII not to regard his theory as proving Genesis (Pius had implied it does in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences).

Some modern physicists think the answer is yes. However there seems to be no evidence that this is so. For those who may be interested, there is no evidence for the assertion that there are experiments showing this universe creating something. This is pure hyperbolic speculation, it is not even known what ( if anything ) has been observed. If, indeed, some form of matter appeared where there had been none, it can only have come from some form of prior existing matter.

Krauss’ lecture (and I think his book) explains recent discoveries in cosmology, including the interesting fact that the total energy across the universe appears to balance to exactly zero, hence the title A Universe From Nothing.

 

[johnweeder]

Assuming we’re taking the classic philosophical definition of the universe, God created it.

Agree with you on point 1 except you might have to expand “universe” to include a larger concept of some kind .

Never in my experience have I witness something create itself. So I don’t think the universe did.

On a purely literal perspective, I would agree that quantum fluctuations do not “create themselves”. I make a fine literal distinction that they “come into existence” though most scientists simply say “they are created”.

On a broader perspective, I would offer that at every point in space and time, even right now before your very eyes, virtual “particles” (I use the word in the quantum sense because we are neither particle nor wave, for example, but both and neither) are appearing from and, generally, returning almost immediately to nothingness.

The very forces which run your computer, electromagnetic forces, and allowed you to type your post were mediated by the exchange of virtual photons (or alternately as a perturbation in quantum field).

Regardless how you frame it, the “stuff” that comprises you and everything comes and goes continuously all about you.

I tend to think that this is how God intended it. Other’s here appear to think this coming from nothingness and going to nothingness is not compatible with catholic dogma… despite the fact that humans have made multiple experiments and have observed it. It would be fair to say we understand those processes better than gravity and, yet, no one here claims the apple I drop on your head will not fall.

Accept that what I am trying to do here is not undermine your faith but impress upon you that the way the physical world functions is much, much different than what you believe you perceive.

 

[johnweeder]

So be easy on him okay?

He no longer exists to me… he’s on ignore.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

If you start viewing from 11 minutes in, Krauss gives an aside about Monsignor Lemaître, who first developed big bang theory, and Lemaître’s warning to Pope Pius XII not to regard his theory as proving Genesis (Pius had implied it does in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences).

But it does imply Genesis. At the time that Pope Pius XII spoke he had jumped the gun. Later, after Pius’s death and before LeMaitre’s death, the evidence had come pouring in that the universe was indeed created. Ever since, even non-Christian astronomers like Robert Jastrow in God and the Astronomers have pointed this out.

“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.”

 

[johnweeder]

I don’t think people in this thread are talking about the same thing.

Physically speaking, it’s demonstrated that matter can come into existence from nothing, so long as corresponding antimatter does somewhere else in the universe at the same time.

Yeah, I think most everyone knows we are talking two separate things.

You are being too specific discussing matter/antimatter. Many things appear from the quantum foam (if it exists).

If you say “equal amounts of matter and anti-matter”, you are really making statements about conservation of mass or energy or momentum or spin, etc. I think in a broad stroke, I would say that over the long period everything always sums zero and that only certain productions are allowed because they have a quantization allowing them to sum to zero.

However, for briefs periods, it apparently does not sum to zero.

And, tho we may believe the sum of the universe is zero, we would need to wonder where is all the antimatter to match all of the matter we see?

 

[johnweeder]

The universe is a machine.

I also believe God created “it” (even though the it may be something “larger”). That doesn’t stop me from wanting to understand it.

You say the universe is a machine. If so, it is an interesting one because it is not deterministic. I.e. given a start state, you cannot know an end state with perfect confidence. Consider that it is not possible to know the outcome of even one single quantum event (careful with this one tho… the quantum bomb detector seems to allow knowing one event by virtue of observing another but has a constraint by the need to limit the rate of propagation of information).

To conjure a ridiculous example, I believe the universe, in essence, allows (the quantum equivalent of) a pink elephant to appear from quantum nothingness into the very air in front of you. It is unlikely but it is allowed. Everything physical you look and see and feel changes as you observe it. Your computer may have just disappeared. Unlikely, yes, but possible (it would not be good for you if this happened!).

 

[johnweeder]

But the cat, whether dead or alive, is actually there.

I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with you. I offered food for thought. I also ponder these questions.

The cat is there because the thought experiment defined it to be there. The thing we are considering is whether its “life” exists or not. In this sense, I am suggesting that it is best to think of those forces which constitute the cat’s life to be considered as a wave function and not as simply existing or not existing.

Your characterization of the evolution in MW is how I think of it. But, what other implications would MW carry on catholic dogma. If I held a quantum suicide gun to my head and pulled the trigger, am I guilty of a sin in all the worlds or only some?

I also agree with your characterization of “nothingness” in a broad sense. However, Heisenberg seems to suggest that “nothing” (as you perceive it) cannot exist. Is this saying the universe must exist simply because it is not allowed NOT to exist?

I also make the fine point about “creating”. The quantum foam does not “create” the virtual particles; they merely come into and out of existence. Granted science (and myself) almost always use the word create and destroy… but words have many meanings.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Oh, the delicious irony. Change “guys” to holy people and the whole of religion’s been explained.

Listen. There’s so much we don’t or will ever know about the universe. Each day, however, we are making strides. Each day we inch that much closer to debunking–in one form or another–religion.

I may not be some high-falootin’ scientist type, but I read a lot. And from what I’ve surmised, matter can indeed be created from “nothing.” Atoms can indeed be in two places at once, meaning they exist and don’t exist at the same time.

What happens in another century or so when the scientific community creates a way for humans to live indefinitely? What then? And don’t tell me it won’t happen, it’s only a matter of time.

I’m not against spirituality or faith. Until they get in the way of how people live their lives. Modern religions do little in the way of advancing mankind (and haven’t in over 600 years), but they sure do a whole lot to degrade us down to our basest instincts and have us at each other’s throats.

Judaism. Christianity. Islam. You’re all praying to the same higher power! Your “mouthpiece” just happens to be different! The big three are like Neapolitan (sp?) ice cream. Same stuff, different flavors!

There are so many theories about how everything came into being. Some more fantastical than others. To me, taking the awesomeness that is sentient life on Earth and boiling it down to some “god” (I won’t even get into the buttheaded god of the bible) kicking it all off is a huge disservice to the true awesomeness of what really happened.

I get it. Y’all are scared of the unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown. Life sometimes (or most of the time for some people) sucks. But you know what? I don’t fear death or the thought of the nothingness that will follow. I fear being near death and realizing I didn’t LIVE enough. And I’ll be darned if I’m going to let some preacher-type tell me that I have to suffer here so that I can reap whatever they think we’ll get when it’s all said and done.

It’s the biggest cop-out ever. It keeps the masses in line. It’s the perfect crime. Can’t prove either way, and by the end, it’s too late. I don’t need religion in my life to be a good person. But I sure know a whole lot of people who do awful things in the name of religion.

If you still want to believe, that’s cool. But stop for a second. Would the Jesus that everyone knows of from the KJB condone the hatred, bloodshed, and inequality that’s taking place in our world right now? And really, what kind of a god allows babies to be born in 3rd world countries with nary a hope at survival, let alone thriving?

Peace be upon you all. I never ask for you to agree with me, I only ask that you think critically and put away the knee-jerk reaction you’ve been spoon-fed.

Why don’t you take a look at the references I gave? Thomas Aquinas has some interesting things to say, so does Fr. Spitzer.

And by the way, quite a few of those who believe in God are very good scientists.
It has not been proven that the universe did or could have created itself. Both of my references demonstrate that. They do it philosophically. As far as religion goes that is another question. Catholics of course, if they wish to be good Catholics, must believe that God created the universe and that only God can create anything. This is a good thing because it keeps us from getting " unhinged " at every pronouncement bellowed by the scientism crowd.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

No, it could not be. THIS universe did not exist pre-big-bang.

It would be meaningless of you to request I show you how a universe which is not existing has somehow created something.

So, obviously, you are either a) intellectually challenged or b) requesting post-big-bang evidence. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed (b). You turned right around and proved it was actually (a).

I think you should take a look at Fr. Spitze’s’ site. He relates that some theorize that there was a singularity which was the Big Bang, others give dozens of other theories, even that there was something before the Big Bang. So my question is appropriate. But since you refuse to meet the channenge, I will just say that no one has proven that the universe could have created itself. Nor has anyone demonstrated that creation is taking place now. And if it could be proven, no one will be able to prove it was anyone but God.

Of couse people have all kinds of fantasies, that is what makes science fiction so popular.

Linus2nd