Could the Universe have Created Itself?

[inocente]

He,he - that individual is a Baptist Lady. ( FYI )

I don’t mind, but for interest, how come you think I’m a girl?

 

[inocente]

If we concede to the idea that the universe created itself, then we must also accept that the universe is not a closed system, and energy can flow in and out of it. This would render the application of the second law of thermodynamics to the decline of the universe useless.

This is how the theory goes:
Premise 1: The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that entropy in a closed system can only increase.
Premise 2: The universe is a closed system
Premise 3: Energy is constantly being converted into non-usable or irretrievable forms of energy
Conclusion 1: The total kinetic energy of the universe is slowly being lost, thus approaching absolute zero.

Premise 4: Everything that has an end must have a beginning.
Conclusion 2: The universe could not have created itself.

I hope this helped! Blessings!

Welcome.

You’re talking of “heat death”, the hypothesis (and only an hypothesis) that the universe will eventually reach a steady state. But all the matter, energy and space would still exist, it’s the death of heat, not the end of the universe. In fact, the universe then continues peacefully for eternity, never ending. So sorry, but it’s not the end so your conclusion doesn’t follow.

 

[Peter_Plato]

post 678 is really no definition of cause. You say it is either a necessary or sufficient condition of an effect. But what is an effect? Also, you did not say what causes lung cancer. If lung cancer has a cause, what is it?

This would seem a logical conundrum you have me backed up against. I say “seem” because what you are doing is using simple lack of knowledge as leverage.

Ask any scientist what a cause is. If s/he is honest, they will reply, “I don’t know.”

My definition of necessary or sufficient condition for an effect doesn’t “seem” correct to you, but you don’t offer a better one, just that you don’t accept it.

If I cracked you over the head with a baseball bat, would that “cause” you to think otherwise? Maybe, but it probably wouldn’t be sufficient nor necessary to do so, either. But that would be because reason is not causal in exactly the same way that physical reality is.

What you are looking for is some kind of mechanism description for cause ( like a baseball bat cracking you over the head.) There just ain’t one of those definitions for “cause.” You are looking for the “direct link” between cause and effect. Well, no one knows that “direct link.”

If you think otherwise, spit it out.

Whether or not humans understand what causes lung cancer does not say a thing about whether lung cancer has a cause. Just because we don’t understand what the cause is, says nothing about whether one exists or not. You seem to be insisting that knowing = actuality. Without knowing the cause there is no cause. There is a difference between epistemology and reality, even if you don’t want to admit that.

You seem to think giving one example of an unknown cause is sufficient to negate the principle of sufficient reason, well, it ain’t, unless you want to venture into the zone of unreason and claim things can just come about for no reason. Is that where you want to stand, then?

Otherwise, I have no idea where you are leading and I have no desire to be led on a wild goose chase.

If you don’t think events need an explanation, then you undermine the entire pursuit of science, philosophy and meaning, in general.

If no meaning and no explanations are necessary, there would be no point in carrying on this discussion, or any discussion with someone who believed that.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I didn’t ask for a hit parade of dudes you have read, I asked you to name these supposed hoards of naughty philosophers. I had a feeling you couldn’t. Prove me wrong

I really do love your style of expression. The hit parade will tell you who. Feser has a good list, check out his blog spot. .
edwardfeser.blogspot.com/ If he doesn’t give you at least a dozen current ones, I’ll be surprised .

Bluster. Thomas himself says he is making an a posteriori argument based on observation - “It is certain, and evident to our senses” = evidence and observation = science. What’s in a name anyway? Are you’re frightened of exacting standards? Frightened of evidence? Then get out of the kitchen, be off with you, or you’ll have Pope Francis talking of decadent Thomists again.

When Thomas says, " It is obvious to our senses that some things are moved. " he is speaking from common sense knowledge, empirical knowledge. That is not science. When he says, " whatever is moved is moved by another, " he is speaking metaphysically. Metaphysics by definition is the study of things simply by the fact that they exist. Hard science assumes the facts which Metaphysics studies. There is the difference…

Que? Que? Thomas says it is evident to our senses and then develops an a posteriori theory. Call it an empiricist argument if you prefer.

Yes, when he says, " whatever is moved is moved by another, " he is using a posteriori reasoning, which is shared by both science and Metaphysics. At this point Thomas is speaking Metaphysically. .

btw I love you guys who say “your problem is that…”. What was that Jesus? Eyes and planks you say?

You just have a phobia against Metaphysics.

Thomas lived before the modern scientific method was developed. That doesn’t mean people didn’t do science before. Isn’t metaphysics so called because they were Aristotle’s writings which come after his physics?

Glad you recognize that. There is a difference between science ( physics if you will ) and Metaphysics. As I said, science assumes the data that Metaphysics studies.

Let not your heart be troubled, we like you and appreciate your feisty (name removed by moderator)ut .

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I don’t mind, but for interest, how come you think I’m a girl?

Awhile back you let it slip. At least you have never denied it. Did you know that one of the most famous Philosophers of the 20th century was a woman, Anneliese Maier, a German, who devoted her life to Philosophical research at the Vatican. She remained single her whole life and left quite a legacy of original work. Another is Elizabeth Anscombe, an American Philosophy Professor, who left much original work. There are others no doubt, I just don’t have first hand knowledge of them.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Yes, of course he thought some things don’t move, he thought the Earth stood still in the center of the universe. But “so what” you say, let’s just ignore inconvenient facts and pretend there are things which don’t change, let’s just ignore Teresa de Ávila, let’s ignore reality. To what purpose? Who gets to decide what to ignore and what not to ignore?

I admitted I might be wrong. I still don’t see what difference it makes.

Might is right? How decadently relativist.

Of course not. But I did explain that there is a real sense in which all things are moving, because all things degenerate or pass away in time. And there is a real sense in which all things do not change, for as long as they maintain their nature as a particular thing they remain unchanged.

Yes, first thing she did was teach me that the first way is dead wrong.

Science is not Metaphysics. Only philosophical argument can prove Metaphysics wrong. Science has not demonstrated and cannot demonstrate that the First Way is " dead wrong. " That is an unwarranted philosophical assumption, strongly tinged with prejudice.

Teresa realized that all things pass, that everything changes. Only God never changes, all things must change. If all things must change (as they must), they change of themselves and no external mover is needed. I think that’s one of Dr. Magee’s objections.

Some things change by natural degeneration, i.e. the elements. And as all things are physically composed of the elements on the periodic table, all things change naturallly. But changes in quantity and quality and local motion require an external mover, at least initially - more on that in " The First Way Explained. " Most Substantial Changes require an external mover. But some Substantial Changes occur naturally, as when one element degenerates into another, i.e. uranium into lead.

I have no idea what you mean, science isn’t confined to some ghetto, every cook does science when she tastes to decide whether to add more salt. You appear to be arguing for terminal ignorance. Anyway, I doubt the Church would agree with you, it sounds just a bit, well, decadent.

This is what I said.

“Just discussed that. Science can make it an object of study under the conditions stated above. It can prove common knowledge incorrect, but to make the blanket statement that movement is not true to common experience is unscientific. It is also false.”

Of course science isn’t confined to some ghetto. But it must employ the scientific method. When it makes " philosophical " statements, it speaks philosophically not scientifically. To do so it must first establish its philosophical basis, its basic assumptions, if you will.

The " cook " is employing empirical knowledge, she/he speaks from experience. But science does have a lot to do with cooking, i.e. canning.

Well, you’re not going to get an Christmas present are you?

I’m going to buy one for myself , one of those fruit cakes made by the Trappists.

Hang on, what, now you’re arguing for a specific kind of ignorance? The kind that likes dark conspiracy theories and indoctrination? Then go to North Korea.

I think you’ll find you’re talking about a certain specific brand of American internet Catholicism and in the wider world Catholics don’t need to be put on CCTV by any Ministry Of Truth. I am going to play my holier than thou card here as I’m actually in a Catholic country that’s just a day trip from the Vatican.

Fiddle sticks, all you have to do is look on U-Tube, its full of it. And the talk shows on T.V., the daily news, etc. Do you live in an isolated hamlet closed off from what’s going on.
No, the Vatican itself is very concerned. And about that " Catholic " country you live in, how Catholic is it really? Not much from what I hear, since WW2 European Catholicism has been on a death spiral. Perhaps Frances can reverse that.

Linus2nd

 

[Tomdstone]

Baptist Guy
Are you sure that motion is physics? How about this:

Suppose you imagine every particle in the entire universe frozen in place. Now imagine that every particle in the universe is simultaneously incremented to a new position. Then just as a the motion on the screen in the cinema results from the sequential projection of a fixed image on each frame of a film strip as it is incremented through the motion picture projector, scientists inside the universe would observe change of all sorts, some of which they call motion and some of which they call growth, etc.

Because no incremental change is observed, scientists assume that the motion is continuous. Furthermore they observe that certain motion occurs in such consistent and repeatable patterns that they can be described with mathematical equations. However, in order to derive such equations they had to abstract the elements that formed the patterns, thus we have “mass” that causes a “gravitational force” that causes bodies of matter to move towards each other.

Newton was the guy that first applied abstraction to the observation of natural phenomena. Others followed his lead so that we now can describe continuous motion and other change with a host of abstractions such as gravity, energy, momentum, charge, mass, inertia, etc. But these elements of physics are merely manifestations of what occurs at the ground of reality.

If, however, motion is incremental (discrete) and not continuous, then the question is: what causes the incrementation?

I contend that it is God that causes one cosmic frame to increment to the next cosmic frame, a Divine Impetus. This is evident when we consider the Big Bang that was initiated without the presence of any of the known forces or of energy. There had to be an impetus to create the space, time, energy, and matter and it had to be non-physical.

God creates and sustains at the implicate level that which science describes at the explicate level.

I don’t know that such a scenario would be in keeping with Thomas’ thoughts, (Linus might comment on that), but I believe that the scenario I just sketched would arrive at the same conclusion, namely that all motion and change is the result of the unmovable mover, God. I merely am describing God’s direct involvement as the Divine Impetus.

So, motion, as I define it, is metaphysical or even theological but surely not “physics”.

Note. I do have a master’s degree in physics, a subject I love. I just love God more.

Yppop

There are discrete difference equations which can be applied if you hypothesize discrete activity.

 

[Tomdstone]

This would seem a logical conundrum you have me backed up against. I say “seem” because what you are doing is using simple lack of knowledge as leverage.

Ask any scientist what a cause is. If s/he is honest, they will reply, “I don’t know.”

My definition of necessary or sufficient condition for an effect doesn’t “seem” correct to you, but you don’t offer a better one, just that you don’t accept it.

If I cracked you over the head with a baseball bat, would that “cause” you to think otherwise? Maybe, but it probably wouldn’t be sufficient nor necessary to do so, either. But that would be because reason is not causal in exactly the same way that physical reality is.

What you are looking for is some kind of mechanism description for cause ( like a baseball bat cracking you over the head.) There just ain’t one of those definitions for “cause.” You are looking for the “direct link” between cause and effect. Well, no one knows that “direct link.”

If you think otherwise, spit it out.

Whether or not humans understand what causes lung cancer does not say a thing about whether lung cancer has a cause. Just because we don’t understand what the cause is, says nothing about whether one exists or not. You seem to be insisting that knowing = actuality. Without knowing the cause there is no cause. There is a difference between epistemology and reality, even if you don’t want to admit that.

You seem to think giving one example of an unknown cause is sufficient to negate the principle of sufficient reason, well, it ain’t, unless you want to venture into the zone of unreason and claim things can just come about for no reason. Is that where you want to stand, then?

Otherwise, I have no idea where you are leading and I have no desire to be led on a wild goose chase.

If you don’t think events need an explanation, then you undermine the entire pursuit of science, philosophy and meaning, in general.

If no meaning and no explanations are necessary, there would be no point in carrying on this discussion, or any discussion with someone who believed that.

Does cigarette smoking cause lung cancer?

 

[Tomdstone]

Science is not Metaphysics.

There is a part of science which is metaphysical. For example, science takes the view that there is an external world outside of ourselves which we can know, at least partially. Maybe not exactly, but approximately enough for most purposes. Something like the shadows in Plato’s cave.

 

[DCNBILL]

meaningless, perhaps, but it would still exist.

How could a “truth” exist without perception?

Sorry about the response to such an old post but I just found it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Does cigarette smoking cause lung cancer?

Not exactly. Smoking introduces certain chemicals (something like 3500 of them) into body organs like the lungs. As a result of the presence of some of those chemicals some cells in various organs of the body become cancerous (typically keep reproducing with no “stop” mechanism. When these cancer cells (tumours) spread to other organs (metastasis) the cancer becomes malignant. That explains how cancer is caused to a certain level, but it is not a complete explanation because the exact triggers, for example in the cells that become cancerous are largely unknown. Even if those were known, a how - or more precisely a why - question can be asked of that explanation. If you continue to ask why of every succeeding explanation, at some point, in order for a sufficient answer to be given to the entire hierarchical sequence of answers, the “final” explanation to be sufficient must explain the entire sequence as well as itself. This is Aquinas’ Uncaused Cause (the necessary explanation that is sufficient to explain all conditional or proximate explanations.)

To say smoking causes lung cancer is only a facile explanation. We refer to smoking as a “cause” but really it is only a “placeholder” for a complete explanation, for which “Smoking causes lung cancer” does not suffice. We can still ask, "How?” And if we can continue to ask how and why questions a sufficient explanation has not been proffered.

Try applying metaphysical “doubt” to the supposition you entertain about any particular causal chain and you’ll see every explanation quickly becomes insufficient.

Aquinas’ point is that in order to sufficiently explain any causal sequence it is necessary to “posit” an Uncaused Cause, an ultimate cause that exists necessarily and explains itself as well as everything else. That “self-explaining explanation” he calls God because only that kind of explanation or "that which exists necessarily by its own nature and by that nature explains all else” AKA God can suffice.

To ask “what caused God” is simply to miss his point. The word “God” is a kind of placeholder for “that which explains everything by its very nature” which is metaphysically necessary in order to explain everything else because without that we have no sufficient explanation for anything.

The way a scientist uses the word “cause” as a placeholder for “an explanation that still needs explanation,” metaphysics uses the word God as a placeholder for “the necessary explanation that can sufficiently explain every insufficient explanation.”

To claim we don’t need God is to make a claim that insufficient explanations are sufficient and we don’t need to pursue things any further, which misses the point of finding complete explanations to begin with.

 

[XAIPETE257]

Why could not the current expansion of the universe end and lead to a collapse into a singularity and subsequently another big bang?

Even if it did collapse, the total energy of the universe contained in the singularity would be significantly less than the prior singularity. If you are trying to suggest that the existence of the Universe is cyclical, the cycle would still eventually end.

Personally I believe that the universe is a closed system. I have too many problems with multiverse theory.

 

[XAIPETE257]

Welcome.

You’re talking of “heat death”, the hypothesis (and only an hypothesis) that the universe will eventually reach a steady state. But all the matter, energy and space would still exist, it’s the death of heat, not the end of the universe. In fact, the universe then continues peacefully for eternity, never ending. So sorry, but it’s not the end so your conclusion doesn’t follow.

The fact that the universe is approaching a state of absolute zero indicates that the universe was created with some initial amount of kinetic energy from which it is declining. In this way, the universe is not capable of sustaining itself and can therefore not be responsible for its own existence.

 

[yppop]

QM Guy
The First Way begins with “It is certain, and evident to our senses”, in other words Thomas is specifying that he is here making an a posteriori rather than a priori argument, he is saying this is an empirical hypothesis, so however you want to define motion, the argument is about the physical universe.

Of course motion is physical, but not necessarily physics, not if it is the change in the configuration of space, then it might be called metascience. The analog for this is the scientific observation that galaxies are not “moving” through space, rather they appear to be moving because the space is expanding and repositioning them. The question in my mind and one that led me to develop my hypothesis is: if the expansion of space is “pushing” galaxies apart, what “force” does space exert.

As regards your digital universe hypothesis, I know you are still developing it and think you need to do three things to avoid it being called pseudoscience.

My hypothesis isn’t scientific. I relegate science to the explicate level of reality. My hypothesis purports to be a possible and plausible description of HOW God creates and sustains at an implicate level of reality (the ground of reality). At worst it is loony metaphysics; at best it is metascience.

The first is to make it falsifiable. For instance, if it is correct then all wave values must be stored at each increment, which in turn requires a “frame buffer” to store them. But since a wave can take values which cannot be stored in a finite number of bits, there will be a discontinuity at each increment due to truncation/rounding. We will notice that (in the same way that the first CD players produce a lot of spurious square wave harmonics). So you need to work out a maximum value for the increment and minimum value for the bit resolution to explain why we haven’t noticed and never will.

Since I am not doing (or interfering) with science, falsification is superfluous. Falsification is one of those ideas that people apply only when it suits their ends. I’ve read Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, et.al and surmise that “falsification” is not the “engraved in stone” criterion for judging whether or not an idea is science. All waves can be digitized with greater fidelity. I don’t worry about square waves harmonics because in my digital hypothesis, the “bit resolution” of discrete space, the substance from which objective reality is derived, is equal to the Planck length of 10^35 meters and the incremental rate is equal to the Planck era =10^43 times per second which incidentally explains why the speed of light is constant and why we could never prove or disprove those assumptions. On the other hand, my intention is not the to dispel any scientific theory, but to develop a plausible argument to counter the secular, materialistic, non-believer that uses science as a weapon to argue that there is no God.

Then you also need to say how your hypothesis explains anything beyond just adding a layer of mystery to squirrel away your … (forgive me) Cinema Projector Guy in the Sky.

Lastly I’m not a physicist but have loads of questions about how it all hangs together. Could you get yourself a free blog site and present the whole thing, math and all? At the moment, without any detail, it sounds like Matrix IV : The Return Of The Einstein Denier. I want to know how you get the speed of light to be constant while keeping gravity while having your “every particle in the universe is simultaneously incremented to a new position” and so on.

I do understand what you are telling me and I will think seriously about a blog. My goal is to define a single mechanism that explains all of reality, including ontological, biological, and teleological all in accordance of the guidelines stated in the encyclical fides et ratio. There I said it and you are free the smile with benign skepticism or laugh out loud.

Mathematical equations are necessary but not sufficient for explaining the true nature of reality… In addition, the value of the equation approach decreases as the complexity of the phenomenon to be explained increases. Try solving a three body problem with an equation, numerical analysis (read: algorithm) is required. And as one of my Solid State Physics professors said at the start of the course, “The Schroedinger wave equation can be solved for all the elements up to and including hydrogen.” I contend that the future of ontological knowledge will include information instead of energy as the dynamic element; algorithms instead of mathematical equations as the definitive element; and discrete space instead of continuous space as the substrate.

To begin to understand how simple algorithms can generate complex results you might google “epic conway game of life” and contemplate what God could do with such a mechanism. If you do view this web site, remember each one of the resulting patterns is the result of incrementing the simple algorithm shown at the beginning. The different patterns are due to different starting patterns.
google.com/search?q=epic+john+conwaya+game+of+life
Thanks for your interest.
Yppop

 

[Tomdstone]

Aquinas’ point is that in order to sufficiently explain any causal sequence it is necessary to “posit” an Uncaused Cause, an ultimate cause that exists necessarily and explains itself as well as everything else. That “self-explaining explanation” he calls God because only that kind of explanation or "that which exists necessarily by its own nature and by that nature explains all else” AKA God can suffice.

To ask “what caused God” is simply to miss his point.

Why can’t the multiverse be the uncaused cause?

 

[Tomdstone]

Even if it did collapse, the total energy of the universe contained in the singularity would be significantly less than the prior singularity. If you are trying to suggest that the existence of the Universe is cyclical, the cycle would still eventually end.

Personally I believe that the universe is a closed system. I have too many problems with multiverse theory.

I thought that energy cannot be destroyed. Also, it is not clear that the total energy of the universe contained in the singularity would be less than the prior case, because the present universe is being bruised by other universes and therefore adding more energy all the time.

 

[polytropos]

I do understand what you are telling me and I will think seriously about a blog. My goal is to define a single mechanism that explains all of reality, including ontological, biological, and teleological all in accordance of the guidelines stated in the encyclical fides et ratio. There I said it and you are free the smile with benign skepticism or laugh out loud.
…
Thanks for your interest.
Yppop

Yppop,

Suffice it to say I’m also interested, though I don’t understand it all.

 

[Tomdstone]

The fact that the universe is approaching a state of absolute zero indicates that the universe was created with some initial amount of kinetic energy from which it is declining. In this way, the universe is not capable of sustaining itself and can therefore not be responsible for its own existence.

What you are saying appears to violate the law of conservation of energy which states that the total energy of an isolated system cannot change but it is conserved over time. Energy can change form, but it cannot be created or destroyed in a closed system.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Why can’t the multiverse be the uncaused cause?

The multiverse does not explain its own existence.

It is not clear to me how infinitely multiplying something (the universe) that does not explain itself serve to bring about sufficiency as an explanation of anything, let alone everything.

Why would a multiverse, for example, be necessary?

A contingent explanation (one dependent on something else to explain it) could not be a sufficient explanation. A sufficient explanation would have to exist necessarily. It would not be possible for it to “not exist.”

There is nothing in the concept of “multiverse” that entails existence as a necessary aspect, since a multiverse is merely an infinite number of universes that might or might not be.
Every universe in the multiverse could “not exist” and since the multiverse is merely the collection of universes, there is nothing that remains that must necessarily exist.

That is all it is, unless there is some necessary mechanism “behind” the creation of multiverses that is not itself a “universe” but, rather, something else. So what would that “something else” be that would make it necessary as an aspect of a sufficient explanation?

 

[Tomdstone]

Why would a multiverse, for example, be necessary?

Why does it have to be?
Why is it appropriate that these categories of human philosophical musing be applied to the multiverse? After all, philosophers have been wrong in the past. For example, please see the book: “Ten Philosophical Mistakes” by Mortimer J. Adler. According to the book, Western philosophy has been in serious error for the last three centuries. His book contends that modern philosophers made errors in several areas such as the nature of the human mind, the nature of language, of knowledge, of moral principles, of free will, and others. Also see the book “On the errors of the philosophers,” by Brother Giles of the order of St. Augustine. In his treatise he discusses the errors of Aristotle, Averroes, Avicenna. Algazel, Alkindi,and Maimonides.
If philosophers have been wrong on so many issues in the past, and if there has been so much disagreement among different philosophers today (unlike in mathematics, where there is near universal agreement on every theorem proven), then could a philosopher be wrong when he attempts to apply the human manufactured category of necessity to the multiverse?