God did not create the universe, says Hawking

[lemondiesel]

I think physicists have to be careful when they start talking theology. They usually start sounding like idiots. Just like if a theologian starts talking about physics he will start sounding like an idiot.

Exactly what this man said

 

[Touchstone]

I never said that it was; I do not equate physical laws as necessarily being synonymous with logical/metaphysical laws. However, if an empirical reality exists, it exist within the context of being possible as opposed to impossible. Some things are truly impossible, which I made evident in my previous post to you. Your blind denial of this fact will not help your case.

What fact am I denying, again? You’re mixing up tautologies with nature again, perhaps? If I say “this circle is a square”, I have made a self-contradictory statement. By definition, a square is “not a circle” and vice versa. To say that something is a square is to also say it is not a circle.

But these are just tautological constructs. It has perfectly no bearing on what is possible or not in nature. Nature pays no heed to our definitions or language constructs. It is what is. As we talk about the world, we deploy definitions for terms like “exist” that necessarily include “possibility” as an attribute. To say something exists is to necessarily affirm its possibility. To say otherwise is just to engage in self-contradictions, to embrace mutually exclusive statements simultaneously.

This is still just talking about our interpretations of reality and the extramental world, though. Nature doesn’t give a hoot what we think about it or how we talk about it. If we think something is “impossible”, and yet, objective observation shows it to be extant, actual, predictable, testable, well, it’s not nature and reality that are going to give way, if anyone is. It’s us who will understand our intuitions to be conceits overthrown by objective analysis.

Again, as many people have pointed out, you have to deny objective logic and thus give up rationality in order to be consistent in your belief.

You must have me confused with someone else. I’m a vocal advocate for logic as an integral tool not just for the enterprise of science, but for reasoning in general. It’s an indispensible tool. The way you talk about logic though strikes me as something like a deity, or a cosmic don’t-know-what or some kind of magical force we rely on for solving problems. If that is what you are calling “objective logic”, then I think that’s quite a euphemism for whatever you are referring to in calling it that, and in any case, I don’t see an empirical or reasoned basis for supposing something like that obtains. We’re talking about symbolic calculus here, right?

For that reason, regardless of whether Christianity is true or not, I reject naturalism as an irrational attempt to avoid the existence of God and the supernatural in general, and the mere fact that you have to give up logic and rational discourse in order to achieve naturalism is justification enough for me to continue believing in a supernatural cause of all potential reality.

Why do I have to give up on either of those. I can find no rational or empirical basis for concluding “God did it”. Whence this God? It’s not an idea informed by necessity or observation. We might as well suppose that one must subscribe to the sacrifice of young children on the altar of the rain gods in propitiation for the blessings of rain in the coming months. If all the tribe can imagine is a linkage between human sacrifice and plentiful rain for crops, do you suppose it’s irrational or illogical to see that as itself a failure of reasoning and reliance on empirical (name removed by moderator)ut and testing?

-TS

 

[richardacombs]

I want to read the book before I make a decision, since Hawking’s views may be distorted. I have read A Brief History of Time and consider it a good introduction to the concepts of relative time, space, matter, and gravity.

That said, if the statements presented in this thread actually belong to Hawking, somewhere along the line he has wandered into the Land of Nonsense. How can gravity exist without matter? If gravity exists, matter exists. If both exist, their origin is still the issue, which even the first Christian theologians addressed, saying that only God could make something from nothing.

Apparently, some modern physicists are trying the opposite tack, making nothing out of something.

 

[Touchstone]

Probability itself becomes meaningless if it is not grounded in logical discourse.

You lost me, here. Probability is description of outcomes. A particular assignment of probability may be more, or less accurate when matched with empirical feedback for the system being analyzed, but I am not getting anywhere with the idea of “ground[ing it] in logical discourse”. What would logical discourse about probability look like?

Science is a research program, based on a gamble, the bet that the unverse is to some degree intelligible, structured, and amenable to some level of modeling or reverse engineering. It might not be, but this is the gamble that science makes in engaging the enterprise. As it turns out, looking back, it seems to have been a good bet. Our experience has lots to suggest that, in fact, the universe does have many aspects of its functioning that can be understood, predicted and modeled to some degree. It isn’t logically necessary that it be that way, but as it happens, that appears to be the case.

Otherwise one interpretation would be just as equally plausible and probable as any other, and since theories are not necessary proofs but highly probably interpretations, if it were devoid of rational principles there would be no good reason to favour one theory over the other or even over a mere hypothesis.

At a high level, the internal rationale doesn’t matter. A model either performs or it does not. Even if we can’t begin to explain why quantum entanglement functions the way it does, to the extent we can describe it and model it in a way that produces accurate, novel and consistent predictions, we have the very best and clearest reason to favor it over other theories whose models perform less well. The final judge of “worth” in science is the performance of the model against the observations of the real world. It’s a good and desirable thing to fortify a model with internal structures and principles that can be evaluated, and perhaps even extended in their own right, but a model that makes people say “can’t be”, or “no way”, but yet beats all other competing theories hands down in real world performance testing will be the “worthy” champion. Theories are considered more probably correct not by their internal rationales, but by their performance empirically. The theory that makes the most accurate, novel, robust predictions across the most diverse set of (name removed by moderator)uts is by definition considered most probably correct.

The employment of inductive inferences in scientific discourse goes out the window. Of course, we naturally presuppose logic and metaphysical truths when we interpret empirical data, that’s how we are able to rationally define the difference between a mere hypothesis and an empirically verified theory.

As above, science makes the gamble that the world is intelligible at least to some degree, and this means, definitionally, that we should be able build models that are not internally incoherent and self contradictory. But it’s a provisional, enabling gamble. The universe isn’t obligated to perform for us because we like science. It is what it is, and just happens to be amenable, so some extent, to our discovery efforts for models.

For instance, we know that God cannot be included in physical inferences because “rationally speaking”, God is not an empirical object.

Well, if a real Zeus were to come down from Mount Olympus throwing down thunderbolts, that would be plenty empirical, don’t you think? Even in Christianity, Jesus was fully God and fully man, making God a perfectly real and concrete, empirical object in the instance of Jesus. There’s nothing necessarily abstract or non-physical about a deity. Deities that are imagined to be “real” but yet do not show up on any objective or empirical tests we might deploy for “real” often need the shelter of equivocation; God is real, but not in the natural or conventional sense of real, the sense of “real” that is amenable to objective inquiry and empirical review.

Maybe a way to test this is to ask you: is a unicorn an empirical object, “rationally speaking”?

We think rationally about it, thus the need for meta-science. The scientific enterprise presupposes objective logic.

As a systematic enterprise, it needs a system, tools. Logic is an essential, important tool brought to bear in science. But it’s just a tool. What we might consider “illogical” based on our own intuitions is of no consequence to nature. It is what is. If the data support what we call “illogical”, then reality is “illogical” per our definition (and this should suggest some review of our definitions).

Secondly, if you don’t believe in logic, then we have nothing more to talk about, since I have no interest speaking to irrational people.

Logic is just a tool. It’s the application of rules that cohere, and it’s indispensible as a tool for the enterprise of knowledge building. But “believe in logic” is a curious way to put it, and if that is to suggest there’s some kind of cosmic or magical… thing/non-thing called “logic” that must be affirmed as a requirement for conversation, well, that seems to be a logical failure right there, but you of course can and will decide for yourself who is worthy of engaging in discussion with you.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

MindOverMatter:

Thirdly, you are confusing impossibility with an idea that is either counter intuitive or incomprehensible. This idea of stealing concepts is an assumption of your world view. Just because you cannot understand “cause” outside of the concept of “physical change”, does not mean that other kinds of causes cannot exist without a physical change.

Well, it’s much more severe a problem than that. For get the “physical” adjective, just identifying “change” is a non-starter. “Change” is another concept stolen from the natural world and offered as pseudo-meaningful in supernatural contexts. In a natural context, it’s coherent; we can point to one configuration of space/time/matter/energy quantitatively as being distinct, different from another, alternative configuration. This electron was part of this atom a P, but at P1 it has broken free. This is the semantic cargo of “change” in the natural world – different and distinguishable local states.

But what does change mean, supernaturally? I’ve no idea, and suspect you have no more idea than I do. If you do, I’d be impressed to be given a method for distinguishing one supernatural state from another, thus giving meaning to the term “change”. What would you use to quantify the “spiritual electron”, or whatever it is you suppose gives meaning to terms like “state” and “change” in the supernatural sense?

My contention is that this is incoherent from end to end, and not grounded in anything we can quantify, measure, or regard as meaningful in a shared, objective sense as we can in the context the term was stolen from – nature.

But its legitimate to ask how we can know the difference between that which is incomprehensible and that which is illogical.

Well, its quite simple. There are certain facts that have to be true not just so that rational thought can take place, but so that there can be any kind of reality at all.

Again, you are confirming my suspicions that you are confused as to what “logical truth” and “empirical fact (truth)” signify. That aren’t nearly the same concept, and they don’t overlap. Logical truths can and do obtain that have perfectly no bearing on the state of affairs in the real world. A logical truth is trivial truth, true in a definitional, tautological sense.

Logical truths, in-order to be true, has to be eternally/timelessly true.

It’s only as eternal/timeless as the definitions or rules it rests on. “Parallel lines never cross” is “true for ever and ever”, by definition, if our definitions of parallel and geometric manifolds are Euclidean. It is a truth, the systematic and deterministic product of rules, but it tells us precisely nothing about the real world.

The phrase, “All bachelors are not married” is either true or it isn’t; because as soon as they get married they cease to be bachelors, and that is an eternal fact of reality.[/qutoe]
No, it’s just a tautology, and “All bachelors are unmarried” is the famous example used in philosophy of a trivial truth, something that is just true by definition and has no attachment to the real world. I could as well say “All bachelors are married”, and so long as that rests on a definition of “bachelor” as “a man who is married”, it’s just as true and just as eternal as what you offered. It’s trivial, in other words.

Thus it is impossible that logic can be an expression of something contingently or potentially real. There is no objective truth in absolutely nothing, because absolutely nothing is the absence of all objective truth or facts.

Logic is a framework of rules and principles we can apply in the reasoning process. I don’t even know what it would mean for logic to be an “expression of something contingently or potentially real”. Again, you’re referring to logic like some kind of cosmic personality or something, which just leaves me scratching my head.

-TS

 

[Betterave]

Just by observation, humans have a predilection toward this god concept. We are late developing beings compared to other animals, mentally, and are extraordinarily vulnerable and shapeable; this is a huge innovation stumbled upon by our evolution, as it allows for very complex and nuanced (meta-representational) conceptual processing. But it makes parents and other older humans around us “gods” to us when we’re young.

LOL! It just goes to show you - those who have had troubled childhoods will have a hard time relating to God. But seriously, what a superficial, childish (not child-like) comment!

My point on God as redundant/superfluous was speaking to explanatory models for reality around us. One can simply suppose that the most ornate and belabored explanations are the best if they are sufficiently appealing. But if one favors economy and parsimony as guides in seeking knowledge (and these are well proven heuristics in knowledge building), God just doesn’t add any value explanatorily.

If we understood how oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water, we might suppose that in addition to hydrogen and oxygen’s chemical bonds, the process requires “water pixies” in attendance to make things happen. That could be the reality, but given what we know, the water pixies are just not adding anything of value to our explanations that chemistry alone doesn’t provide. Water pixies may be a question people find intensely interesting, but that doesn’t make them useful in explaining how water molecules form.

-TS

Welcome back, TS. It looks like we’re going to need to straighten you out on your “parsimony” dogmatism again! Remember that “Demanding Evidence” thread six months ago? Did you actually learn anything from that? I had hoped that you had.

 

[Betterave]

Logic is just a tool. It’s the application of rules that cohere, and it’s indispensible as a tool for the enterprise of knowledge building. But “believe in logic” is a curious way to put it, and if that is to suggest there’s some kind of cosmic or magical… thing/non-thing called “logic” that must be affirmed as a requirement for conversation, well, that seems to be a logical failure right there, but you of course can and will decide for yourself who is worthy of engaging in discussion with you.

-TS

So you’re claiming that logic need not be affirmed as a requirement for conversation, since it’s “just a tool”??

 

[Touchstone]

So you’re claiming that logic need not be affirmed as a requirement for conversation, since it’s “just a tool”??

It’s a tool, but it’s indispensable for thoughtful conversation. So yeah, it’s required, some basic agreement on definitions and coherence of statements, and avoidance of internal contradictions, etc. But that, as useful as it is for us, is not some cosmic constraint on reality, a principle which governs how or why a universe comes to be.

-TS

 

[BazPollard]

Along with other so called scentists Hawkins has a one track mind and tunnel vision.
I have one as a family member and one day he was getting at our religious faiths and I said to him ’ Science is doomed if it tries to explain Gods mystical powers’. He thought for a moment and has never brought the subject up again. He’s probably still trying to think of an answer to it, I know he never will.

 

[Aboveallbereal]

Well, who caused God, then? By your own standards (which I think are unsupportable, but you endorse them), it’s irrational to eschew a cause, so how do you rationally support belief in an uncaused God? Or is this something you just accept from yourself as irrational (your use of the term)?

-TS

You presuppose that human reason is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Christians do not.

In this is the answer to your question.

Rabbi Sacks comments are actually apposite when he says that faith in God is at root unconcerned with the mechanics of how the world was created but rather with the metaphysical questions of its existence.

it is quite normal for those of a scientific bent to suppose that “how” questions are primary but to many they are merely procedural questions of no real import. “Why” questions bore the scientist ( hence the absurd notion that Philosophy is apparently dead which could only be held by a blinkered mind obsessed with mere process ) but are in fact of greater interest to many others.

 

[_L]

If there is nothing in the universe, or to say that nothing exists in the physical world, then how can gravity exist let alone be active if there is no mass or objects with mass.

 

[Touchstone]

You presuppose that human reason is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Christians do not.

In this is the answer to your question.

Rabbi Sacks comments are actually apposite when he says that faith in God is at root unconcerned with the mechanics of how the world was created but rather with the metaphysical questions of its existence.

it is quite normal for those of a scientific bent to suppose that “how” questions are primary but to many they are merely procedural questions of no real import. “Why” questions bore the scientist ( hence the absurd notion that Philosophy is apparently dead which could only be held by a blinkered mind obsessed with mere process ) but are in fact of greater interest to many others.

Hmm. As one firmly in the “science” camp here, I don’t find the questions of “why” boring or irrelevant at all. They are profound and pressing, but they are also intractable. What I think you are confusing is your idea of “boredom” or incuriosity with a clear-eyed acknowledgment of our epistemic limitations. When I talk to the handful of physicists I know in real life, their interest in the “Big Why” questions are not any different than mine, or yours, from what I can tell. As people who make a profession of building real knowledge, though, of actually making demonstrable forward progress on “how” questions (or smaller ‘why’ questions, perhaps), it’s not boredom but simply fact facing for them to understand that these are questions beyond our grasp, and that pretending otherwise is childish and conceited.

It’s the most natural path there is for the narrative-centric human mind to follow. This is a prominent feature of our evolved psychology. But we epistemically limited, and science has been a boon in many regards, but here, importantly, it serves as a very good razor for us to see where we are actually making headway and progress toward more knowledge, and where we are just indulging our fancies and emotions. The urge is natural, but the goal does not obtain.

And it’s just as well, I think. It’s a cool, fall-is-coming beautiful day here in Minnesota, and a brisk walk in the bright sun and cool breeze provides abundant and visceral meaning for the “why” – we have this precious day to live, walk, enjoy and revel in the wonder of a late summer afternoon.

-TS

 

[Aboveallbereal]

Hmm. As one firmly in the “science” camp here, I don’t find the questions of “why” boring or irrelevant at all. They are profound and pressing, but they are also intractable. What I think you are confusing is your idea of “boredom” or incuriosity with a clear-eyed acknowledgment of our epistemic limitations. When I talk to the handful of physicists I know in real life, their interest in the “Big Why” questions are not any different than mine, or yours, from what I can tell. As people who make a profession of building real knowledge, though, of actually making demonstrable forward progress on “how” questions (or smaller ‘why’ questions, perhaps), it’s not boredom but simply fact facing for them to understand that these are questions beyond our grasp, and that pretending otherwise is childish and conceited.

It’s the most natural path there is for the narrative-centric human mind to follow. This is a prominent feature of our evolved psychology. But we epistemically limited, and science has been a boon in many regards, but here, importantly, it serves as a very good razor for us to see where we are actually making headway and progress toward more knowledge, and where we are just indulging our fancies and emotions. The urge is natural, but the goal does not obtain.

And it’s just as well, I think. It’s a cool, fall-is-coming beautiful day here in Minnesota, and a brisk walk in the bright sun and cool breeze provides abundant and visceral meaning for the “why” – we have this precious day to live, walk, enjoy and revel in the wonder of a late summer afternoon.

-TS

To be honest TS I find your posts occasionally difficult to decipher. What does “does not obtain” mean in the context of your post?

You seem to assume that “Real” knowledge is limited to what scientists do. How do you define “real knowledge”? Would you as an example suppose that Beethoven’s ability to arrange sound such that it moves us is exhibiting “real” knowledge in the way Hawking ( in the event his theses or guess be true ) is exhibiting “real” knowledge.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

What fact am I denying, again? You’re mixing up tautologies with nature again, perhaps? If I say “this circle is a square”, I have made a self-contradictory statement. By definition, a square is “not a circle” and vice versa. To say that something is a square is to also say it is not a circle.-TS

A square triangle evidently cannot exist in reality. It isn’t just a tautology.

But these are just tautological constructs. It has perfectly no bearing on what is possible or not in nature.-TS

Yes it does. I cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. Thats an evident fact of reality. I think, therefore I am, therefore I can know for absolute certainty that I exist, through logical reflection. There is no tautology here. Logic is an intrinsic expression of reality.

Nature pays no heed to our definitions or language constructs.-TS

Then are language cannot say anything true about reality since truth has no meaning. That’s science out the window since it doesn’t tells anything true about reality; its just a tautology. If you say that a thing can be true as opposed to false, then you are saying that the law of contradiction tells us something about real things.

It is what is. As we talk about the world, we deploy definitions for terms like “exist” that necessarily include “possibility” as an attribute. To say something exists is to necessarily affirm its possibility. To say otherwise is just to engage in self-contradictions, to embrace mutually exclusive statements simultaneously. -TS

No it isn;t according to you. You just said that logic doesn’t apply to reality, so why should it apply to meaningless statements?

The only person you are fooling is yourself. Surprise surprise, you don’t believe in objective logic!!

 

[Touchstone]

To be honest TS I find your posts occasionally difficult to decipher. What does “does not obtain” mean in the context of your post?

It is not realized. We can and do continue to wonder and ponder, but we cannot identify any headway towards the goal.

You seem to assume that “Real” knowledge is limited to what scientists do. How do you define “real knowledge”?

By performance. If it can, explain, predict and survive testing for falsification, objectively, it is performative. A crucial aspect of this is liability to falsification and a feedback loop that is corrective. Real knowledge is as practical risk of being invalidated, and while it may be counter-intuitive, if I am treating propositions as “knowledge” that are unfalsifiable, even in principle, I haven’t got any knowledge from that at all. It’s not ‘true’ in any meaningful sense if it can’t be false. This is what underwrites the ‘real’ in ‘real knowledge’.

That’s not an approach that is relegated just to science, by the way. But it does fairly dismiss many religious ideas of ‘knowledge’.

Would you as an example suppose that Beethoven’s ability to arrange sound such that it moves us is exhibiting “real” knowledge in the way Hawking ( in the event his theses or guess be true ) is exhibiting “real” knowledge.

Yes. Demonstrably, measurably, that music may well prove to be effective in soliciting strong emotional reactions. Even if Beethoven wasn’t consciously aware of this effect from his music (he surely was aware of the reactions to many of his symphonies when he was there to introduce/perform them!), the potency of Beethoven’s music in terms of emotional reactions is something we could measure and document, objectively. How much we could substantiate as Beethoven’s conscious control over this or that particular effect in his music is an open question, but the knowledge we might gain about the effects of his compositions on others, no matter what level of awareness he had, would and could be substantiated as “real” knowledge.

We could falsify the idea, for example. If we went and found that Beethoven didn’t move the needle in the instruments measuring listener reactions any more than a monotone, or white noise, or Barbra Streisand music, we would have an empirical basis to reject the idea. We could predict it’s reactions based on observations of listeners. Out of every thousand people we tested, if we found 400 “went into the red zone” on the instruments, in reaction to the music, we could pursue a hypothesis around that ratio, and predict that for any given new audience, 40% or so would have that reaction. To the extent that prediction beared out with further testing, we would have fortified the hypothesis, empirically, and made the case that much strong for that hypothesis as ‘real knowledge’. It might have been otherwise, and our hypothesis at every hearing is liable to “not perform”, and we might find that often as not, very few or none of the crowd “went into the red zone” in listening to Beethoven. It’s an idea at risk, and because it’s at risk, when it does perform and succeed, we have warrant for acknowledging this as “real knowledge”.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Touchstone

I can find no rational or empirical basis for concluding “God did it”. Whence this God? It’s not an idea informed by necessity or observation. We might as well suppose that one must subscribe to the sacrifice of young children on the altar of the rain gods in propitiation for the blessings of rain in the coming months. If all the tribe can imagine is a linkage between human sacrifice and plentiful rain for crops, do you suppose it’s irrational or illogical to see that as itself a failure of reasoning and reliance on empirical (name removed by moderator)ut and testing?

I can find no rational or empirical evidence for concluding that the universe created itself, or that it is the product of a parent universe. We might as well subscribe to the view that the moon is made of cream cheese.Prove it!

If you can imagine a parent universe, why can’t you imagine a parent Father of all creation? Yes, you can. There is nothing self-contradictory in the notion as would be self-contradictory in the notion of a square circle. But to deny this parent because He is believed to be part of a supernatural order, rather than a natural one, proves nothing. If God exists, you cannot possibly apply the naturalistic criteria for evidence to the Creator. To ask, “From whence does God come?” and then to answer that He comes from nowhere that you can detect, is to prove nothing at all. An atheist cannot prove from whence the universe came either. Does that mean the universe is also an illusion? If one seeks to restore infinity and eternity to the universe by imagining parent and grand parent universes that have been spawning offspring for all eternity, you would be alleging qualities of the universe that characterize the universe, just as we allege that infinity and eternity apply to God. In principle, you have to make the same case against the universe that you make against God. From whence comes this infinite and eternal Multiverse? As you have so often said: The universe just is. Why can’t the same be said for God?

 

[Touchstone]

A square triangle evidently cannot exist in reality. It isn’t just a tautology.

Yes it does. I cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. Thats an evident fact of reality. I think, therefore I am, therefore I can know for absolute certainty that I exist, through logical reflection. There is no tautology here. Logic is an intrinsic expression of reality.

 

[Touchstone]

Touchstone
I can find no rational or empirical evidence for concluding that the universe created itself, or that it is the product of a parent universe. We might as well subscribe to the view that the moon is made of cream cheese.Prove it!

Well, the moon being made of cream cheese is a proposition we could very well falsify. The idea that God created the universe, or that the universe is self-created is quite different, and is perfectly immune to either validation or falsification. It’s simply beyond our epistemic perimeter, one way or the other. When Hawking, or Stenger, or Krauss, or Susskind talk about a godless metaverse, they are not standing on any empirical context for metaverse itself. Can’t be, as any metaverse beyond our universe is by definition beyond our observational capabilities.

Rather, the “impersonal universe” idea is just an extrapolation of physics that we do have an understanding of here in this universe. The physics of this universe might not obtain beyond this universe, if “beyond this universe” is even a reality or a coherent concept in the first place. But if so, the models we’ve developed have the interesting feature that when applied in this outer context, the predictions that proceed from that are that a universe like this one is expected, or even inevitable.

We’ll never know, and it can’t be tested, but we can note that this is conjecture that is at least grounded in solid knowledge of real world physics for this universe, which is something we conspicuously cannot say about, say Catholic ideas about creation of the universe and a creator God.

If you can imagine a parent universe, why can’t you imagine a parent Father of all creation? Yes, you can.

Sure can. I was a devout Christian for decades.

There is nothing self-contradictory in the notion as would be self-contradictory in the notion of a square circle.

Agreed.

But to deny this parent because He is believed to be part of a supernatural order, rather than a natural one, proves nothing.

I agree, but in the I-think-you-made-a-Freudian-slip sense. To posit God as part of a supernatural order is to posit God as a constituent of nothing, as a citizen (or lord) of a perfect void, a perfect nothingness.

Suppose I claimed that unicorns exist, but only as part of the “infranatural order”. You can’t detect, smell, see, touch, measure or otherwise interact with these unicorns that exist as part of the “infranatural order”, but I insist that they exist in that context all the same. What say to the reality of infranatural unicorns?

If God exists, you cannot possibly apply the naturalistic criteria for evidence to the Creator. To ask, “From whence does God come?” and then to answer that He comes from nowhere that you can detect is to prove nothing at all.

The objection rises up far earlier than that. It’s “not even wrong” as a proposition, it’s just incoherent, meaningless, the whole paradigm. “Cause”, “exist”, “from”, “where”, “nowhere”… all of these terms are just borrowed from our real world experience, and have no grounding (“grounding” – another term deployed from our real world semantics!) in anything we can identify as real. The entire discussion is untethered, unaccountable to real world tests, and trafficking in stolen concepts.

The proposition needs coherence before we can begin to address “truth”, “exists”, or “real”, or anything like that, supernaturally.

An atheist cannot prove from whence the universe came either. Does that mean the universe is also an illusion?

No, of course not. I acknowledge the extent of my knowledge potential. That’s not knowable, even in principle. Frustrating, for sure, but that’s the real world for ya. We just don’t know, won’t know, can’t know, and to think otherwise is to take on premises or conclusions that are trivially shown to be unwarranted.

If one seeks to restore infinity and eternity to the universe by imagining parent and grand parent universes that have been spawning offspring for all eternity, you would be alleging qualities of the universe that characterize the universe, just as we allege that infinity and eternity apply to God.

Sure. It’s worth pointing out that all that holds in a perfectly godless impersonal way as well as in a personal way. Only in the godless model, we have less entities to explain and account for!

In principle, you have to make the same case against the universe that you make against God. From whence comes this infinite and eternal Multiverse? As you have so often said: The universe just is. Why can’t the same be said for God?

The same can be said for God, and is routinely said for God, here and in many other places. The salient realization, though, is that all this is just ungrounded speculation, indulging our fancies.

In any case, I’m not claiming knowledge of a self-creating universe, or an eternal metaverse, or a God created universe. That is all foolish to maintain as anything more than pure speculation. To hold to any of those as knowledge is to denigrate the term “knowledge”. So the utility of the “eternal metaverse” in countering Catholic apologetics is just to show that that how category of proposition is empty, impotent, idle, self-indulgent. It could just as well be an eternal, godless metaverse that is the outer context for our universe, for all we can ever know. That’s a withering idea for Catholic intuitions of a creative God, to realize that one’s intuitions are epistemically at EXACT PARITY with a number of contradictory and competing alternatives.

I don’t, and can’t commit to any of them. It’s those who do commit to one of those ideas that are going off the reasoning reservation.

-TS

 

[nguirado]

Touchstone: Very good job. I think you’ve been very patient as well and you’re an asset to us all. I see your point that nature doesn’t have to conform to our notions of logic. I think you also mean that if we observe something illogical, we’d have to change our notion of logic.

Will Hawkins deliver some kind of knockout blow? I think most people wouldn’t ask for real evidence. A plausible theory that shows that laws cannot not exist and that nothing cannot not exist because of those laws would be sufficient.

As religious people, we only need to fight to a draw. Faith is a virtue, after all. I’ve decided to have faith until it contradicts reality.

 

[Touchstone]

Touchstone: Very good job. I think you’ve been very patient as well and you’re an asset to us all. I see your point that nature doesn’t have to conform to our notions of logic. I think you also mean that if we observe something illogical, we’d have to change our notion of logic.

Will Hawkins deliver some kind of knockout blow? I think most people wouldn’t ask for real evidence. A plausible theory that shows that laws cannot not exist and that nothing cannot not exist because of those laws would be sufficient.

I think “plausible” gets very dicey as a concept beyond the confines of our own universe (it’s plenty tricky as it is to gauge in this universe). We have no clue what rules apply “out there” (note the futility of our language to even talk about this without resorting continually to our “this-universe” concepts), if any, from the set of physical principles we’ve come to grips with in this universe.

There may not be anything else. Or there may. It’s an epistemic vacuum.

Given that, I think there’s very little Hawking’s, or anyone’s conclusions about this question can accomplish. I haven’t read the book yet, but I am increasingly impressed by the implications of the physics of this universe applied to an enclosing context. String theory is not really qualified as science for the same reason religious ideas aren’t – it’s untestable and unfalsifiable as it is, and neither are even putatively knowledge for that reason. But, as I keep coming back to, it’s intriguing nonetheless that the maths, applied in a strictly theoretic and speculative way produces dynamics that generate universes like ours.

That cannot rescue the idea from the realm of “speculative only”. But it does separate itself from merely theological notions in that is the math of physics projected outward. If that were perchance the reality we can never verify or know, it would be elegant and wonderfully coherent, indeed. Sort of the antithesis of a capricious, will-driven God as the “outer context”.

As religious people, we only need to fight to a draw. Faith is a virtue, after all. I’ve decided to have faith until it contradicts reality.

A draw is the best, and worst case either the atheist or Catholic can hope for, epistemically. We are all utterly separated from any real knowledge on this question. But perhaps I have just been misunderstanding both Catholic orthodoxy/dogma, and its resident theology over the centuries; my impression was that Catholicism claimed knowledge of the creative process and creator of the universe. Moreover, I’m pretty sure from reading Aquinas, Anselm and many others that God as the “prime mover” has been advanced as a logical necessity.

If the origin of the universe is at length realized to be opaque, as plausibly (!) God-driven as it is impersonal-physics-driven, that seems quite a setback for the church, and ground gained for unbelief, doesn’t it? Even in this thread (or was it the TAG argument thread?), you have the argument advanced: If God doesn’t exist, then how’d all this come to be, huh? That’s the kind of credulous thinking some disciplined thinking about physics in this world applied to transcendent contexts can (and should) nullify. If you can read and understand the math, and see the coherence of a metaverse that mathematically integrates creation of universes like ours into the model, and this is the very same math that produces the stunningly accurate and powerful models of nature in this world, that whole argument from ignorance thing is a lot harder to go to.

-TS