Needing Help to Disprove an Atheist Claim about the Big Bang

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True, but there’s also plenty of math that produces models with no semblance to reality. The Schwartzschild and Kerr-Newman metrics are good models for the exterior of black holes and even parts of their interior, but they break down as you approach the singularity in the Schwartzschild model and the Cauchy horizon in the Kerr-Newman model, as the models are unstable against small perturbations in these locations.
 
IWantGod said:
But at the same time the idea that there is no absolute beginning to physical reality is not evident either and certainly isn’t something that can in principle be proven with the scientific method.
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While you are indeed correct, that science can’t currently prove that there’s no absolute beginning to physical reality, it is in some sense at least, a far more logical conclusion than the conclusion that reality is a recent and arbitrary creation of an omnipotent God.

In the God scenario we’re faced with the question of why we just happen to exist in that infinitesimally small period of time directly following God’s act of creation. I say infinitesimally small, because compared to eternity the fourteen billion years in which reality has existed is unfathomably insignificant. It’s far, far less than the proverbial blink of an eye when compared to eternity. Yet that’s the improbable period of time in which you exist. Why?

In a cyclical universe model the answer to that question is simple, you exist in this insignificant period of time, because this insignificant period of time keeps repeating, over, and over, and over again. So you’re always going to exist somewhere within this repeating cycle. Eternity is never going to be a consideration. We’re here now, because we have to be here, or somewhere just like here.

Can we prove that the cyclical universe model is correct…no. Will we ever be able to prove it…perhaps. Can you prove that God exists…no. Will you ever be able to prove it…perhaps. But the odds say that the cyclical universe is the better bet.
 
mythbuster1 said:
True, but there’s also plenty of math that produces models with no semblance to reality. The Schwartzschild and Kerr-Newman metrics are good models for the exterior of black holes and even parts of their interior, but they break down as you approach the singularity in the Schwartzschild model and the Cauchy horizon in the Kerr-Newman model, as the models are unstable against small perturbations in these locations.
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Well as impressed as I am with your expertise in black hole physics, let’s not pretend we’re all experts in theoretical physics (or maybe you are and you didn’t have to Google any of that, in which case my apologies). But if some Nobel prize winner says he has the maths to show that, for example, a cyclical universe is possible, I’m not going to spend a couple of evenings with a glass of good malt or two checking his figures.
 
Freddy said:
I’m not going to spend a couple of evenings with a glass of good malt or two checking his figures.
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There is perhaps an inverse relationship between the number of glasses imbibed and the ultimate reliability of your figure checking.

Not that I would question your judgement.

Cheers.
 
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QContinuum said:
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Freddy:
I’m not going to spend a couple of evenings with a glass of good malt or two checking his figures.
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There is perhaps an inverse relationship between the number of glasses imbibed and the ultimate reliability of your figure checking.

Not that I would question your judgement.

Cheers.
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Curses, Thursday is one of my mid-week-keep-out-of-the-cocktail-cabinet days. Roll on the weekend (which starts very approximately around 4:00pm on a Friday).
 
An infinite past simply cannot exist. If the past was actually infinite, all the possible events would already have happened.
An actual infinity also cannot exist, it’s just a mathematical tool. Let’s imagine there is an hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Every room is occupied by one guest. Suddenly a new guest shows up and asks for a room. What would then happen?
 
Zartemio said:
An infinite past simply cannot exist. If the past was actually infinite, all the possible events would already have happened.
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The premise here needs work. There’s no particularly good reason to believe the number of possible events is finite.
Zartemio said:
An actual infinity also cannot exist, it’s just a mathematical tool. Let’s imagine there is an hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Every room is occupied by one guest. Suddenly a new guest shows up and asks for a room. What would then happen?
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I prefer to imagine a countably infinite hotel where a countably infinite number of new guests arrive, each with a countably infinite number of dependents demanding their own rooms all but a finite number of whom must be left in the foyer or squeezed in with their parents.

No one outside of a scattering of 4th century BCE apologists still speaks of actual and potential infinities. Not since Cantor, anyway, and certainly not the Hilbert whose name is attached to your hotel. There’s an entire field of transfinites that has grown up since Hilbert. We add, subtract, multiply, divide, exponentiate, rank, and order our infinites today in ways undreamt of in Aristotle’s philosophies.

Welcome to CAF.
 
Mmarco said:
On the other hand, mathematical models are only constructions of the rational thought and a mathematical model can exist only as a thought in a thinking mind conceiving it; this implies that matter (and the physical universe) is not the foundation of reality, but its existence depends on a more fundamental reality i.e. consciousness: contrary to the basic hypothesis of materialism, consciousness is a more fundamental reality than matter.
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The Pythagorean Theorem was true before anyone knew to write it down.

I’m generally suspicious of any scientist who begins an argument with an appeal to their scientific authority, and doubly so when that person is engaged in apologetics, a contra-scientific enterprise. When they call on expertise in a subject outside their field, and get it wrong, they call into question their expertise in their own.
 
Juvenal said:
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Mmarco:
On the other hand, mathematical models are only constructions of the rational thought and a mathematical model can exist only as a thought in a thinking mind conceiving it; this implies that matter (and the physical universe) is not the foundation of reality, but its existence depends on a more fundamental reality i.e. consciousness: contrary to the basic hypothesis of materialism, consciousness is a more fundamental reality than matter.
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The Pythagorean Theorem was true before anyone knew to write it down.
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Wrong. The Pythagorean theorem is true only in an euclidean plane, which is an abstract concept which didn’t exist before anyone conceived such a concept. As Einstein showed, reality is not an euclidean space.
 
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Mmarco said:
Wrong. The Pythagorean theorem is true only in an euclidean plane, which is an abstract concept which didn’t exist before anyone conceived such a concept. As Einstein showed, reality is not an euclidean space.
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With respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about, as evidenced by your suggestion that the Pythagorean theorem pretends to be true in the real world. That’s simply not true.

No mathematical concept — from the continuum hypothesis to the number two — exists in the real world. The Pythagorean Theroem is true when its fundamental, abstract assumptions are satisfied, and to the extent those fundamental assumptions are also satisfied in the real world, it can be applied in the sciences.

Whether applied well or misapplied makes no difference to the underlying mathematics.

Like your God, mathematical truths don’t require the presence of humans or any other thinking creature. Like your God, they exist eternally, independent of the existence of any other gods or men or universes. Like your God, they are unchanging because they are based on transcendental truths. Like your God, we may discover them, but we don’t create them.

There’s no need to take my word for any of this merely because I’m a mathematics professor. Feel free to confirm these facts with any mathematician, with any other professor, or through your own independent study, but until you do, I’d advise against misrepresenting my field.

There are too many of us to make that a winning strategy.
 
Juvenal said:
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Mmarco:
Wrong. The Pythagorean theorem is true only in an euclidean plane, which is an abstract concept which didn’t exist before anyone conceived such a concept. As Einstein showed, reality is not an euclidean space.
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With respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about, as evidenced by your suggestion that the Pythagorean theorem pretends to be true in the real world. That’s simply not true.
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I have never suggested that the Pythagorean theorem pretends to be true in the real world; I thought it was you the one who were suggesting it. As I said, the Pythagorean theorem is true only in an euclidean plane, which is an abstract concept which didn’t exist before anyone conceived such a concept. Therefore, your previous statement “The Pythagorean Theorem was true before anyone knew to write it down” is false, because the Pythagorean Theorem did not exist before someone conceived the euclidean space.
Juvenal said:
Like your God, mathematical truths don’t require the presence of humans or any other thinking creature.
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Simply false. Mathematical truths may exist only as concepts in a thinking mind, because they are the product of the rational thinking, therefore they require the existence of a conscious and intelligent being.
 
Zartemio said:
An infinite past simply cannot exist. If the past was actually infinite, all the possible events would already have happened.
An actual infinity also cannot exist, it’s just a mathematical tool. Let’s imagine there is an hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Every room is occupied by one guest. Suddenly a new guest shows up and asks for a room. What would then happen?
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Exactly. 🙂

A past-eternal, perpetual motion universe/multiverse would be like the movie Groundhog Day.

Everything would have already happened an infinite number of times. Marty McFly and Doc Brown would be popping up here, there and everywhere.

Everyone would be omniscient. We would have had more than enough time to…cure cancer, achieve world peace, solve global warming, learn how to turn water into wine.
 
Juvenal said:
There’s no particularly good reason to believe the number of possible events is finite.
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There is a particularly good reason to believe the number of rooms is not infinite. Infinity is not a number.
 
Mmarco said:
As Einstein showed, reality is not an euclidean space.
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Mmarco said:
I have never suggested that the Pythagorean theorem pretends to be true in the real world …
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I’m thinking your argument here isn’t with me. Good luck with that.
Mmarco said:
Mathematical truths may exist only as concepts in a thinking mind, because they are the product of the rational thinking …
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I don’t know any Nietzschean mathematicians, though I’d imagine they could exist. Most of us are Platonic idealists. Comes with the territory. But the emphasis throughout was on their truth, not their ontology.
Mmarco said:
The Pythagorean theorem is true only in an euclidean plane …
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Thank you for your thoughts.
 
There is belief now in a paradox reality would simple correct it - in the case of the room another room would just appear for the new guest and the time line would go on much the same.
Infinity is not a number
Thats why in calculus you can have infinity + 1 = {1234567…Infinity}
 
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