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Linusthe2nd
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Why don’t you enlighten me? And please explain how it fits into this conversation.
Linus2nd
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Linus2nd
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
In which Question and in which Article of Part 1 does he claim to have proven that God exists? Just a little test.
Really? Sounds like simple ignorance of who Thomas was and when he lived. I guess you will have to be a little more careful with your " rhetorical " statements.
I think I suggested. I did not admonish.
Linus2nd
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BOSS10L
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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.
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johnweeder
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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).
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johnweeder
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I chose a wiki page because it eliminates the possibility of you just saying I made something up.
The article has references. The page has a “talk” section (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Quantum_fluctuation) populated by field specific experts who will answer your concerns. Or you can go to en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Quantum_fluctuation&action=history and speak directly with the various people who created the article.
All of these phenomenon are discussed in numerous publicly available and peer reviewed papers. Many experiments have been performed by numerous parties and all have conformed remarkably well to expected values.
You can go to Amazon (amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=quantum%20fluctuation) and purchase any of the 4,417 unique works concerning quantum fluctuation.
It is not my job to personally defend decades of work by thousands of scientists.
Failure to post extensive analysis here does not change a fact. The fact exists independently. All that is absent is your open mindedness by refusing to accept facts.
Spitzer mentions and appears to implicitly accept quantum fluctuation post big bang. He explicitly rejects it pre-big-band as a means by which the universe was created. This is my understanding of his position. You don’t need to take my word for it. He has papers and syllabi online which you can read yourself.
At this point, I have done exactly what you demanded in your post. You, in turn, have merely rejected it out of hand by making vague references to Aquinas or shot-gunning a whole load of videos by Spitzer. No where have you offered a single shred of reasoned support for your position.
Give me a specific reference (from a public source) from either of these two disproving quantum fluctuation.
You constantly asked “Have you read Aquinas?”, as if that somehow justifies your position. That is merely a question. And one which I have already answered. Whether I have or have not read him, has no bearing on the scientific facts and theories presented. And, no, I am not here to subject myself to some sort of trick quiz by the likes of you. If you wish an answer, I suggest you start at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas and follow the references.
Truth be told, I am reasonably certain you don’t understand Aquinas or Spitzer. You merely use their names as bludgeons to shout down anything you don’t agree with or can’t understand.
I fail to see wasting any more time with you. You are not here for a debate. You merely intend to continue shouting as loud and long as possible and somehow justify that to yourself as a vindication of your position. You will continue believing the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, that evolution doesn’t happen and the rocks are actually only a few thousand years old, und so weiter. I’ve met your type before. I chastise myself for not recognizing your true nature sooner.
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SonCatcher
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I’m sure you’re aware that intelligence has little to do with the mere accumulation of facts. Understanding (quite a different thing from recitation) and application of what is known are more related to intelligence.
I have great respect for both Aquinas and our physicists of late, but they deal with different matters entirely.
Linusthe2nd, Aquinas actually wasn’t writing about scientific origins. He was describing God as pure actuality and the created universe as a blend of potentiality and actuality.
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johnweeder
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Giggly,
I would like to offer that the big bang does not strictly attempt to show why or how the universe was created (the supposed premise of this thread). More correctly, it attempts to show the evolution of the universe from the (possible) singularity and forward in time. In general, it restricts itself to that portion of time very close to the initial origin.
That does not mean scientists do not postulate what may have happened “before” (even though the concept of “before” is, strictly speaking, meaningless from our perspective). Or that scientists continue to speculate now about even wilder things like the multiverse or the bulk (brane theory) or many-worlds.
While these thing are interesting, many are not technically provable because we can never observe them. We can maybe infer them. Or, maybe make statements about the relative probability of various ideas. We might be able to eliminate some as implausible or impossible.
In a sense, the debate here will ultimately resolve as follows.
The question is “Could the Universe have Created Itself?”.
Strictly speaking, the question is flawed or it expresses an oxymoron. It also ignores potentialities like the multiverse or many-worlds or the bulk. Defining the universe as “all space and time” does not preclude many universes or things outside of this universe or even stranger things like many-worlds.
I would think the question is more properly “Can a universe come into being absent a ‘creator’ (the prime mover)?”.
Someone like Steven Hawking would argue that it is possible. But he does not say “therefore there is no God”. He is asserting that this specific universe and the initial conditions defining it could have happened without God (i.e. that God was not a necessary condition even though he may be a sufficient one).
Others will say that Catholic dogma states that God is a necessary condition.
Neither position seems to be strictly provable.
As an aside, I am not sure of how Church dogma applies to things like the bulk or the multiverse or many worlds. I personally hope the church is not foolish enough to take an official position and risk another Galileo-like incident where they have to twist the truth a posteriori in order to justify their incorrect position a priori.
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johnweeder
Guest
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.
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Iron_Donkey
Guest
I’ve never understood this position. If something is capable of creating things, then it exists. Therefore, a nonexistent universe cannot create a universe. Maybe a existent universe can drastically change shape, or bring new types of objects that didn’t exist into itself, but it can’t do that if doesn’t exist.
It’s rather silly, really.
It’s rather silly, really.
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Iron_Donkey
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No not really, not all. The superposition thing you’re talking about is really another way of saying that what we call position or spin or whatever are not fundamental, but that the fundamental properties are rather (appear to be) these quantum states.
This can be interpreted as saying that a thing can be in two places simultaneously, I suppose - but that’s really a very loose interpretation. Better to say it has no position at all until such time as its position would have an effect on things, at which point it gains one.
Now, I say all of this because none of this quantum stuff says anything “both existing and not existing.” If it can be in a quantum state, then it exists. If a system can have a state where the superimposed properties are that there is matter and there is not matter, then the system is in that state and so exists, and the presence of the matter is not a fundamental thing (I am not sure whether or not such states exist).
But regardless, a system cannot be in a state if it does not exist. No system, no state for it to be.
And that whole closer and closer to debunking religion thing is pure made up stuff. I mean, you might be able to disprove a belief system that claims that picking your nose on a Sunday after a full moon causes it to rain on Mars, but claiming that one can disprove religion in general via science is silly. First, it’s too general: that’d be a silly as me saying I disproved science. Second, it assumes way to much about experimentation - one might as well say that we’re getting closer and closer to disproving the big bang using only a bucket of legos.
It won’t happen. The universe will die of heat death, and everything will end, and even if we prolong a single human life until the end of time, we’ll all die. There is a giant clock, and it’s winding down, and there is not so much as a glimmer of a hope that we can stop it.
That’s like saying you’re not against science until it gets in the way of how people understand physical reality. A man’s religion is his most fundamental understanding of reality and his place in it, and if that doesn’t affect how he lives his life then… he’s not bright. As for the “do little to advance mankind” bit, I think you must know zero history and nearly zero current events.
I was going to continue to point by point this, but I found a song that I think is relevant to your points here: youtube.com/watch?v=KThlYHfIVa8
(That link is a little tongue in cheek, but I imagine that given the way you phrased the above that you should be able to be ok with it.)
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johnweeder
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I agree that the threads creator chose a topic which is technically oxymoronic.
However, I chose to simply read into it what was probably meant.
I would pose it something like this: “Can a universe common into being absent a ‘creator’ (i.e. the prime mover, aka God)?”
Of course, even this leaves questions like “what is a universe?”
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Mount_Carmel
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There are some ‘scientists’, desperate to exclude a deity of any sort who hypothsise the idea of ‘Brane Cosmology’ - in effect ‘slices/sheets’ of energy/matter that 'float about in the eternal ‘void’ and that periodically bash into each other ‘creating’ new and interesting universes/stuff.
One question that immediately springs to mind is that if they are floating about in infinity, then it is infinitely unlikely given the vastness of an ‘infinite void’, for them ever to meet. Another question is the one of entropy - the gradual leeching of energy and movement over large amounts of time.
I feel the whole conjecture to be rather ‘Pie in the Sky’ - or should that be ‘Pie in the Void’?
One question that immediately springs to mind is that if they are floating about in infinity, then it is infinitely unlikely given the vastness of an ‘infinite void’, for them ever to meet. Another question is the one of entropy - the gradual leeching of energy and movement over large amounts of time.
I feel the whole conjecture to be rather ‘Pie in the Sky’ - or should that be ‘Pie in the Void’?
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johnweeder
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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.
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johnweeder
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With respect, I submit…
Why do you assume brane theory was created merely to exclude a deity? Was relativity proposed merely to discredit the church by further refuting geocentrism?
Respectfully, your cursory dismissal of something you know little about is little better than those who said the earth was flat and the center of the universe merely because that is how they interpreted the bible. Why actively choose willful ignorance? What will you say if strong scientific evidence is found in support? What will you say if they are wrong, but their pursuit leads them to truth? And, if they are flat wrong, will you not find yourself guilty of the sin of hubris?
Let science run it’s course. Science will soon separate the Alchemists from Nobel prize winners. Science is right or wrong in and of itself. You cannot make it right or wrong with prognostications.
Who says God didn’t create the bulk and exists outside of it?
Why do you assume brane theory was created merely to exclude a deity? Was relativity proposed merely to discredit the church by further refuting geocentrism?
Dimensions more properly than sheets of energy or matter. And, possibly, but not necessarily infinite.
And please don’t make the mathematical mistake of multiplying infinities and then trying to use that to justify a position. I can use such math to simply say the branes themselves are infinite and so it is infinitely likely they touch everything in the void.
Why do you object to scientists exploring possibilities? They may be proven or disproven or merely remain possibilities.
Respectfully, your cursory dismissal of something you know little about is little better than those who said the earth was flat and the center of the universe merely because that is how they interpreted the bible. Why actively choose willful ignorance? What will you say if strong scientific evidence is found in support? What will you say if they are wrong, but their pursuit leads them to truth? And, if they are flat wrong, will you not find yourself guilty of the sin of hubris?
Let science run it’s course. Science will soon separate the Alchemists from Nobel prize winners. Science is right or wrong in and of itself. You cannot make it right or wrong with prognostications.
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johnweeder
Guest
Ahhh… where did you read this definition of entropy. I know a lot of them and I’ve never seen this one.
Energy is always conserved (except for short periods of time in very special cases). It never ever under any circumstances “leaches away”.
**Movement ** is merely dx. A body in motion stays in motion and all that newtonian stuff. No direct bearing at all on any form of entropy I am aware of. Certainly, “movement” doesn’t “leach away”. Momentum (mv = m * dx / dt) is conserved.
Time does not specifically enter into it except to the extent that entropy in a closed system never decreases (though it can remain the same).
I would give a very broad definition of entropy as correlating with the number of possible macroscopic arrangements of a closed system which are indistinguishable from the current arrangement. Notice that there is no time (t) or movement (dx) or energy (e) term in this definition.
Please tell me how you think your “knowledge” of entropy somehow entitled you to comment on the validity of brane theory.
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Bahman
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First their argument is not “Universe have created itself”. Their argument is that universe has came out an quantum fluctuation which is a possibility in their picture. Please also read: hawking.org.uk/the-origin-of-the-universe.html for further explanation. Unfortunately understanding of the technical details requires several years of study.
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Paddy_Walker
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I’ve not heard of this planet creating a new life-form from inanimate matter in recent history. I’d imagine that that should be possible if that is how we explain our existence here. In fact, for the universe to create itself and life on earth then there should be no way to prevent it from continuing to do such things - like creating new life from inanimate material…
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Jaaanosik
Guest
That’s what some physicists could call “nothing”. A particle can come to an existence from the vacuum energy and then annihilates.
Where there was no four dimensional particle (our spacetime) suddenly there is one.
The physicists are discovering “ex nihilo”.
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johnweeder
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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?
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