God did not create the universe, says Hawking

[MindOverMatter2]

Venturing in where I likely am well over my head here…BUT…

I have three children.
The consciousness that each has is truly unique and never existed before.
There was no conscious mind there before, and now I have a child that has a unique personality.

I am uncertain if this fits completely into the discussion concerning matter, etc. but nevertheless it is something that was not before but is now.

And unless it can be shown that the conscious mind is purely a product of the biology, then this may well be an ongoing example of something from nothing.

You are absolutely correct. What touchstone refuses to acknowledge, which is a symptom of his philosophical presumption of naturalism, is that we live in a multifaceted reality, not all of which can be explain by reducing the whole to its parts. The form that is you or I, is obviously more than the sum of its part. We as a whole are not identical to the individual parts of which we are made. To simply say that we are just energy, is to ignore every other aspect of our existence that is evident to our senses. Thus one is correct to say that we, the form which is a person, at one point did not exist, and thus we came in to existence, even though energy in the form of atoms was already in existence.

 

[reggieM]

If intellect is a property of matter, then there are physical reference points for all human thoughts.

Human thoughts, however, are infinite in quantity. There are infinite numbers and humans can make any calculations on an infinite set of numbers.

This would mean that the human brain has an infinite physical (cellular and neurological) capacity.

But the human brain has a finite capacity, therefore it cannot store an infinity of thoughts.

So, intellect must be immaterial.

 

[ContegoFides]

And you know this because?

Its not that I don’t agree with your statement; it is certainly true that anything which begins to exist needs a cause. But the reasons you gave for this fact (nonsense), will not convince somebody who doesn’t see why it isn’t possible and perceives science as the absolute arbiter of truth and rationality.

1. First we have to show that science isn’t in fact teaching the idea that the universe came out of absolutely nothing… [text omitted to save space]
2. Then you have to show the atheist that the idea of something coming from nothing is metaphysically unsound. This requires one to understand “being” in terms of its “act” as opposed to non-actuality.

We must realise from this moment forth that its not just God that is under attack here, but rather it is the very idea of “impossibility” that is being attacked. The distinction between real and unreal is being attacked. Its obvious why the atheist wants to attack it, and they use what science is apparently saying in order to justify their irrational position. That’s why it is extremely important for us to point at the epistemic and methodological limitations of science when it comes to knowing truth.

Merely saying that the atheist is talking nonsense will not vindicate reason or the existence of God, because as soon as one holds that there is no such thing as impossibility, the word nonsense becomes meaningless.and probability becomes a tautology since there is no such thing as absolutes. No such thing as truth for that matter.

This problem is made even worse when we have Catholics subscribing to the “nonsense” that undermines our faith.

“Nonsense” is not so much a reason as a conclusion. As you have posited, It is self evident that anything that has a beginning must have a cause.

As you seem to agree, natural science (positivism) only can talk about that which can be measured. If we cannot measure it, by whatever means (even indirectly), the positivist by definition cannot talk about it. The positivist might speculate, and perhaps even use mathematics to speculate as to what happens in or near unmeasurable physical things (such as singularities and anything inside the event horizon). However, in the end, it remains speculation. Thus, a positivist cannot actually say anything at all as to the “cause” for the laws of gravity. His authority simply ends.

Thus, IMHO, the real problem here is that the atheist - by an act of faith (trust) - has limited his or her belief to that which can be measured. If something cannot be measured and empiracally verified it (at least in theory), then he/she will assume that it does not exist. If the atheist sticks to this premise, then absolutely no argument could possibly convince him or her otherwise. Literally, the atheist has no trust in anything outside of what can be demonstrated to him/her, and thus has no faith.

The problem with this premise is that it defies natural reason, and experience, and thus must be incorrect. For example, the very abstract concepts we are discussing cannot be measured, but they can be said to “exist.” Clearly, things which cannot be measured have “reality,” even if they are not “physical.” Of course, I have not demonstrated that God exists, only that the atheist’s premise of “lack of belief unless positivistically provable” is less resonable than the alternative (even if it is rational).

On the other hand, while I cannot prove positivistically that God as proclaimed by the Catholic Church exists, I can show that faith in God is reasonable.

In the end, it is the Holy Spirit that convert hearts. However, God is not a dictator, so if people want to be hard-hearted then there’s really nothing that can be done to reach them. No amount of argumentation will be convincing, because in the end it is not about reason but about faith (which is trust without reservation). The irony is that the atheist takes God’s non-existence on faith - though the atheist will vigorously deny this assertion.

The reason why this argument is so important in our age today is that the result has social consequences. We are fighting, perhaps indirectly, for the hearts and minds of the general public as well as control of the political process. Hence the lawsuits and recent “evangelism” of many atheists. The assertion is that religion is “bad;” however, the irony is that Atheism as the basis for a social structure has been demonstrated in the 20th Century as being far worse than anything religion has ever done. On this basis alone, atheism must be rejected - even if it were “true.”

On the issue that smart people can be wrong.

Someone below posited that smart people can be wrong (paraphrased only). This assertion is clearly correct. However, intelligence is not the issue.

For example, it cannot be said that atheists are not intelligent, and that some of them have a genius approached by only a few. Likewise, some of the most intelligent people who have ever lived were people of faith, such as John Paul II, Aquinas, etc.

However, the issue of intelligence is a red herring. The very appeal to intelligence is an appeal to authority, and the appeal subsumes the idea that if you were “smart,” you would have no choice but to agree with the smarter party. However, the issue is not about intelligence, but rather of faith (trust) regarding matters which cannot be measured. Thus, the smartest people in the world could disagree regarding these matters and have a rational basis for their respective positions - though it is intuitive trust in God (or lack thereof) that wins the day in the hearts of individuals.

 

[WmJackP]

Whether or not “absolutely nothing” is a purely philosophical idea doesn’t change the fact that everything must have a cause or an origin, including the laws themselves. To say otherwise is nonsense, as everything must have an origin. The first cause must be transcendant to physical laws, which leads us to inquiry of the Divine.

Naturally, one may state that one does not believe in God without physical proof, though logically, in view of the above, doing so is like putting blinders on a horse so that the horse does not believe that anything can be seen except what is in front of it.

The perennial problem I have with statements like “there must be a god—otherwise nothing else makes sense” is what it means to say “there is a god”. If one means that there must be something which is fundelmental and that it explains all and everything else, then that is quite right. There is, in that sense, a god. That is what science explores and attempts to find. And I can certainly entertain that belief because logic, reason and any rational examination leads one to expect there to be an explanation for that which is.

But where I depart is when the proposition is offered, without any evidence whatsoever, that the definition of this “ultimate or primordal principle” includes “personhood”, attributes and imputed with motives and objectives. I cannot understand how such inclusions can be validly argued except, of course, people claim that they do so “on faith”. So when I question “people of faith” what it means to accept an unsubstantiated issue on faith, the meaning seems to me to be more linguistically in step with “hope”. In other words, one can hope that there is this all knowing, all loving “God of the book” because a personal god cannot be known in any verifiable sense. I understand fully, that perrhaps, that is your point–that verification is of no concern in ultimate matters. For me, however, I would rather be straight up and intellectually honest and know what can be known. Otherwise, if such matters are left simply to “faith”, does it not seem that there is such an overwhelming menue of beliefs, practices, faiths and dogmas in the world and into which one may place his or her “faith”/ “hope”. How could one possibly pick just one over the other (and still be both informed and objective). Does one praise Allah at the risk of angering Baal or does one fail to practice rituals according to the RC’s or some off-shoot sect at the risk of eternal torment? There is too much similarity with superstition for me to feel right with just hoping I am right in what I might “hope” for (or have “faith” in).

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

If intellect is a property of matter, then there are physical reference points for all human thoughts.

Human thoughts, however, are infinite in quantity. There are infinite numbers and humans can make any calculations on an infinite set of numbers.

This would mean that the human brain has an infinite physical (cellular and neurological) capacity.

But the human brain has a finite capacity, therefore it cannot store an infinity of thoughts.

So, intellect must be immaterial.

Well, done, Sir.

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

The terms get tricky here, but so long as we understand something like “mediated” or “indirect” as the relationship between mind and extra-mind through the senses, OK. Transcendental Idealism. All we have direct access to is phenomena (Kantian sense – ‘mental sensations’).

Can’t, and faith or religious belief cannot help you.

Sure. Per Popper (he’s a player in the history of this question), we understand our knowledge to be positive knowledge to some (still tentative) degree because it is performative and has passed some practical tests for falsification. That is, knowledge is eliminative, and therefore tentative, always; what we know is that which cannot be knocked down as false and which has some path by which we understand it may have been knocked down as false, if it were in fact, false. That is why we might rightly describe our knowledge as “not demonstrably false” or even “demonstrably not false” (if you get the distinction, there), in lieu of saying it is “true”.

We ascribe what epistemic value we have to the performance of the idea, and its having “passed falsification tests”, even as we acknowledge that it still might be false, overturned, or something close (adjusted, revised, updated).

I start from “I don’t know” for things that are not known by necessity (e.g. something exists), and “tentative” is far out from there as we can get. See above regarding perfomance in predictions, etc. and liability to falsification.

It’s functional. I can deploy my understanding, for example, of electronics, to create a circuit board of my design. If my understanding of physics, electronics and logic is correct, it will do what I anticipate (so long as I execute well on its design/manufacture). If it fails to do so, I have non-functionality. If it succeeds, I have produced functionality – even if it’s “all an illusion”, it’s still functional! And that is the basis of “value” for knowledge. It’s effectual, and has utility.

That kind of response is really just fine with me. As you can imagine, I’m the “black sheep” in my circles, the odd atheist in a see of theists of various stripes. I have little to no gripe with believers who understand the nature of their belief – something like what you have expressed here.

Just by induction, of course. It’s an idea that has broad and consistent evidential support. It might be wrong – we are always tentative – but given what’s before us, it’s the only judgment that fits the facts economically. That is, if the world were such that the energy/matter could not be destroyed, no how, no way, never, it would look and act just like this world. It might be that “matter is created in this ad-hoc case”, or some such, but that’s an ad-hoc deviation from the parsimonious answer, a capricious adjustment we have no warrant for outside of our caprice.

I think we may be disagreeing at the “universe border”, though. If you are thinking there is some “metaversal law” (across all universes and contexts) that matter/energy is impossible to destroy, I’d say “could be!”, but that would only be allowing for logical possibilities. We don’t have any basis for projecting consistency of our experience inside this universe to contexts outside of it. That’s been my mantra all along here, so I won’t press that farther here.

-TS

**Thanks so much for the response, Touchstone!!!

I’ve always been fascinated by Mind/Body," “Knowledge” questions and statements, like “Cogito Ergo Sum” and related stuff. It put me in mind of that subject when I read your “Extramental Knowledge is tentative” statement.

Question:
“Can’t, and faith or religious belief cannot help you.”

1)Theoretically speaking, do you yourself think we will EVER be able to approximate to know HOW to achieve knowledge of the “extramental (or spiritual) world?”

I personally do not think we can achieve it OUTSIDE of Direct Mystical Experience, which of course is both subjective and outside the realm of the “Mind.” MY opinion.

1. If you’re using “can’t” in a “permanently closed” category (I.e., “Never”) wouldn’t the “BEST” (or even ONLY) way to approximate that “extramental knowledge” would be the Direct Mystical Experience route, however “Subjective” it would be???

A hallmark of Buddhist, Hindu, and even Christian (Mystical) Religion is the postulation (belief) that one has to go beyond “mind” and “reason” to achieve Nirvana, Sammadhi, or “union with God” (think of Meister Eckhart).

Even many atheists are comfortable (I don’t know if you are, though) with the (particulalry) Buddhist concept of “Drop Mind and BE.” Or "Drop Mind and Connect (to “whatever.”)

1. So ultimately, wasn’t Kant wrong in stating that one can only know the “extramental world” through “impressions?” did he not totally ignore the idea of Mysticism (as per “direct personal subjective union with God?)”

Kant was a believer in God but it seems to me he put too much emphasis on “knowing God through Reason.”

What do YOU think???**

 

[MindOverMatter2]

For me, however, I would rather be straight up and intellectually honest and know what can be known.

Hope is never dishonest.

 

[OrdinaryMelkite]

You are absolutely correct. What touchstone refuses to acknowledge, which is a symptom of his philosophical presumption of naturalism, is that we live in a multifaceted reality, not all of which can be explain by reducing the whole to its parts. The form that is you or I, is obviously more than the sum of its part. We as a whole are not identical to the individual parts of which we are made. To simply say that we are just energy, is to ignore every other aspect of our existence that is evident to our senses. Thus one is correct to say that we, the form which is a person, at one point did not exist, and thus we came in to existence, even though energy in the form of atoms was already in existence.

Great point.

 

[Jesness]

Not all’s lost-we’ll just have to start worshipping gravity. Which I guess makes zero gravity evil?

Hawking says that God didn’t create the universe, God says that He did. I know who I’m going to believe.

 

[Neithan]

poor Hawking this mess seriously undermines his credibility as a thinker.

Edit: that’s a little harsh maybe… but at least the soundbite is poorly worded. I’m fascinated by M-theory and the multiverse idea myself, but to extrapolate from it that God doesn’t exist is just plain foolish.

…and the fact that Dawkins has championed this piece of popular scientism as a "coup de grace" it gives one the impression these men don’t really care about what’s really real, they just want to vindicate their entrenched positions and win arguments. Scientific sophistry…

 

[JDaniel]

poor Hawking this mess seriously undermines his credibility as a thinker.

Neithan:

I’m not at all sure it undermines his credibility as a thinker. My first thought is that not many scientists/ physicists would even dare to tackle the subject in book form. So, he’s gutsy. Also, other scientists will now get to read up on him, and many may become secret believers in him - or, disbelievers. The problem is, there are probably many other scientists who do not understand what “nothingness” means, philosophically.

As you well know, this stuff isn’t taught in most universities, or colleges. I dare say, the people pursuing these fora probably have more insight than most into both sides of the debate. To be honest, I do not have the book and, thus, have not read it. Touchstone has started reading it and is confident that Hawking is making acceptable points. From a secular POV, I would expect that. But not from a religious POV. I see the book as a minor set-back for Christianity, of sorts. Will the number of adherents to atheism dramatically increase because of it? I doubt it. But, I don’t think the number of adherents to Christianity will dramatically decrease either.

God bless,
jd

 

[Aboveallbereal]

poor Hawking this mess seriously undermines his credibility as a thinker.

Edit: that’s a little harsh maybe… but at least the soundbite is poorly worded. I’m fascinated by M-theory and the multiverse idea myself, but to extrapolate from it that God doesn’t exist is just plain foolish.

…and the fact that Dawkins has championed this piece of popular scientism as a "coup de grace" it gives one the impression these men don’t really care about what’s really real, they just want to vindicate their entrenched positions and win arguments. Scientific sophistry…

In fairness to Hawking I don’t think that the fact that his really rather tentative and circumstect comment re God has been jumped on by Dawkins should be held against him. Surely Dawkins is by now an embarrassment to atheism. the fact that he is philosophically ill equipped to deal with these matters is now a given. John Gray, a leading atheist himself, is never less than brusquely dismissive of Dawkins who is an obsessed irrelevance. I simply ignore his rantings now.

 

[Touchstone]

You are being inconsistent. You are turning a scientific statement in to a metaphysical absolute. In other-words, you are correct only if physical reality is absolute. You have no epistemological authority to turn a physical law in to an absolute.
It’s not an absolute. It’s just inference, garden variety inference. For a long time, the thinking was all swans are white, and indeed, that was consistent with the available evidence at the time. But eventually, black swans were produced and the thinking adjusted accordingly for reasonable people; new information and evidence often demands adjustment to one’s models.

But prior to any black swans being produced, it was true and reasonable to say that based on the evidence, all swans appear to be white. That was the facts at that point. That’s a case where the thinking was overturned via discovery of new counterfactuals, but it’s easy to point at cases where the thinking has endured intact over very long periods of time and mountains of new evidence; the conservation of matter and energy is one such stalwart conclusion that has held up spectacularly, and is put to the test constantly. Based on everything we can observe and test, and that is quite a magnificent mass of evidence now – energy/matter is conserved, and cannot be destroyed by any known process.

That’s the facts. The reasonable conclusion, based on the evidence is that matter/energy can’t be destroyed. It’s a scientific conclusion, so it’s not cosmic or magic, or absolute – science disavows all that nonsense. It’s a tentative but well supported conclusion based on a lot of observation and testing.

In any case you admit so long as you have certain knowledge of a things nature it is possible to make inferences from its nature in terms of what it can’t possibly do.

I don’t recognize the term ‘certain knowledge’. Do you mean ‘knowledge with certainty’, or “particular knowledge”, as in 'knowledge of a certain kind"? In any case “impossibility” is tricky case to make, and the farther one gets from controlled, local experience the harder it is to make claims about impossibility, because we know less and less about the governing dynamics. We don’t know what makes universes, if anything does, and we are on shaky ground to begin with on that subject. Impossibility is a strong claim – see the challenges in proving a universal negative – and the First Law of Thermodynamics is in some way the exception that proves the rule. Impossibility is hard to establish, and defend empirically, and very easy to overstate (the impossibility of measuring both position and momentum per Heisenberg is another example – a kind of ‘impossibility in principle’).

-TS

 

[MindOverMatter2]

All you have to do is look on the tv. Listen to the radio. Watch the news. Read the blogs. Christianity is being systematically attacked at all ends, and its going to get a lot worse before it gets better. What we don’t realise is that “desire” is a huge factor. In the first place, people don’t desire Christianity, and most people who convert, only do so because they realise that they need God whether they like it or not. This is isn’t just an intellectual war, its a culture war. Thus when somebody of high standard, genius, comes out and say that the world popped out of nothing, you can be dame sure that allot of people are going to accept it uncritically, since why would a genius of science be so deceptive or be wrong about where the universe came from. Science is the new priest hood of moral righteousness. Notice the book isn’t called the philosophy of hawking’s and co. Its presented as an authoritative science book; when really its a book about nothing.

Its all psychology. Its just to bad that the younger generations are going to be too ignorant of what science truly is to realise that they are being given a counterfeit called scientism.

 

[Touchstone]

You are absolutely correct. What touchstone refuses to acknowledge, which is a symptom of his philosophical presumption of naturalism, is that we live in a multifaceted reality, not all of which can be explain by reducing the whole to its parts. The form that is you or I, is obviously more than the sum of its part. We as a whole are not identical to the individual parts of which we are made. To simply say that we are just energy, is to ignore every other aspect of our existence that is evident to our senses. Thus one is correct to say that we, the form which is a person, at one point did not exist, and thus we came in to existence, even though energy in the form of atoms was already in existence.

This is to confuse a kind of naïve reductionism with materialism, and apparently holism with supernaturalism. Neither are synonyms, and a materialist-holist view of a person, an ant colony, or a symphony needs neither magical thinking nor reductionist deconstruction to understand, interact and appreciate all of those things at the higher levels of description we relate to them on. I wish Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach was online and available somewhere, as a couple of its chapters (“Ant Fugue”) are really excellent at putting paid to this supernaturalist conceit, the misconception that materialism somehow denies higher levels of description, and the meaning and semantics that attach to them.

A person is no more “just energy” to a materialist than she is to a Baptist, that’s a totally impractical level of description on which to operate, and is not how anyone conceptualizes themselves or other persons they talk to, and this is evident in just observing them a short while. But neither do such higher levels of description establish some kind of “ghost layer”, a supernatural dimension (to steal another physical term to be pressed into service for supernatural discussion) which somehow provides higher levels of description. “Person” is a higher level of description, and its as mistaken to view that subject as “just energy” as a robust view as it is to view that subject as “a body with a supernatural soul”. These are both failures in grasping levels of description for the forms, structures, patterns and processes around us.

-TS

-TS

 

[MindOverMatter2]

(the impossibility of measuring both position and momentum per Heisenberg is another example – a kind of ‘impossibility in principle’).

-TS

This here is a true example of an impossibility, because of the contextual nature of that which is being observed and the observer. The reason we know this is because we have an understanding of the epistemological limitations involved given this particular context, and thus we can make a genuine inference of impossibility.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

In any case “impossibility” is tricky case to make, and the farther one gets from controlled, local experience the harder it is to make claims about impossibility, because we know less and less about the governing dynamics.

Thus, If you have certain knowledge of a thing, you can make genuine inferences of impossibility in regards to its nature.

 

[Aboveallbereal]

It’s not an absolute. It’s just inference, garden variety inference. For a long time, the thinking was all swans are white, and indeed, that was consistent with the available evidence at the time. But eventually, black swans were produced and the thinking adjusted accordingly for reasonable people; new information and evidence often demands adjustment to one’s models.

But prior to any black swans being produced, it was true and reasonable to say that based on the evidence, all swans appear to be white. That was the facts at that point. That’s a case where the thinking was overturned via discovery of new counterfactuals, but it’s easy to point at cases where the thinking has endured intact over very long periods of time and mountains of new evidence; the conservation of matter and energy is one such stalwart conclusion that has held up spectacularly, and is put to the test constantly. Based on everything we can observe and test, and that is quite a magnificent mass of evidence now – energy/matter is conserved, and cannot be destroyed by any known process.

That’s the facts. The reasonable conclusion, based on the evidence is that matter/energy can’t be destroyed. It’s a scientific conclusion, so it’s not cosmic or magic, or absolute – science disavows all that nonsense. It’s a tentative but well supported conclusion based on a lot of observation and testing.

I don’t recognize the term ‘certain knowledge’. Do you mean ‘knowledge with certainty’, or “particular knowledge”, as in 'knowledge of a certain kind"? In any case “impossibility” is tricky case to make, and the farther one gets from controlled, local experience the harder it is to make claims about impossibility, because we know less and less about the governing dynamics. We don’t know what makes universes, if anything does, and we are on shaky ground to begin with on that subject. Impossibility is a strong claim – see the challenges in proving a universal negative – and the First Law of Thermodynamics is in some way the exception that proves the rule. Impossibility is hard to establish, and defend empirically, and very easy to overstate (the impossibility of measuring both position and momentum per Heisenberg is another example – a kind of ‘impossibility in principle’).

-TS

Stripped down what you are saying is that science presents us with axioms which are thought true til proven otherwise. That is not rocket science dear boy. Any reasoning man agrees.

Part to the problem is in language collocation. The fact that “laws” collocates strongly with “physics” is really a linguistic accident. Physics has no laws. It is closer to the truth indeed itis the truth inasmuch as that word means anything to say it presents us with axioms. No less and certainly no more.

 

[Touchstone]

Neithan:

I’m not at all sure it undermines his credibility as a thinker. My first thought is that not many scientists/ physicists would even dare to tackle the subject in book form. So, he’s gutsy. Also, other scientists will now get to read up on him, and many may become secret believers in him - or, disbelievers. The problem is, there are probably many other scientists who do not understand what “nothingness” means, philosophically.

As you well know, this stuff isn’t taught in most universities, or colleges. I dare say, the people pursuing these fora probably have more insight than most into both sides of the debate. To be honest, I do not have the book and, thus, have not read it. Touchstone has started reading it and is confident that Hawking is making acceptable points. From a secular POV, I would expect that. But not from a religious POV. I see the book as a minor set-back for Christianity, of sorts. Will the number of adherents to atheism dramatically increase because of it? I doubt it. But, I don’t think the number of adherents to Christianity will dramatically decrease either.

God bless,
jd

Yeah, making my way through it – and have been sort of skipping around to see if I can find the “juicy parts”, and not really finding much – I don’t think it’s gonna be persuasive one way or the other. Hawking has the same challenge Briane Greene had/has with string theory – retail science exposition is really hard, when your subject matter involves heavy duty physics, and it’s really tough going if your message involves quantum mechanics.

Atheist friends who don’t make a point of following physics understand the conclusion (which they like), but not the argument. There is something new for Hawking to talk about, on the theoretical end; I can see why he thought the time had come for this book. But a lot of that is esoteric to people who don’t immerse themselves in these issues. It’s too early to judge in my reading, but already, it’s clear that the “retail” nature of the book makes it much more fluffy than I would have expected. There’s a lot less there than A Brief History of Time, so far. Pedagogically, it’s much less persuasive. Understandable, because his subject matter is so much less accessible. As vexing as time is, it’s something everyone “knows” and is involved in, conceptually.

My verdict so far: this is really dumbed down stuff, for Hawking (not “dumb”, but “dumbed down”.

-TS

 

[MindOverMatter2]

It’s not an absolute. It’s just inference, garden variety inference.
-TS

You make the mistake of forgetting that the laws governing energy are inferred within a physical context alone and is epistemologically limiting to physical things since its is made within that context. It has nothing to say about the powers that lie beyond physical limitations or laws. Its a physical inference, as in, there is nothing physical that can destroy energy, as far as we know. Do not mistake this for a metaphysical inference, since the inference itself is made in the context of physical reality alone on the bases of a methodological assumption. There is no reason why I must think or hold to the idea that the laws of energy is synonymous to universal reality, as this would be a metaphysical claim, rather than a scientific one, and thus would have no scientific bases. Thus you cannot use scientific inferences to undermine metaphysical inferences such as out of nothing comes nothing because true metaphysical inferences are based upon “certain knowledge” as opposed to scientific probabilistic knowledge.

I my self can hold it to be physically true that nothing physical can destroy energy (which I do), but that doesn’t mean that I must hold it to be an absolute metaphysical law of reality. I can hold that energy can be created and destroyed in a metaphysical sense, and also hold that in a physical context energy cannot be destroyed.