uncaused cause

[Hermione]

I know very, very little about either physics or philosophy. What I know I’ve read in popular books and simplified articles so please forgive me if I end up posting false information, it’s unintentional.

I guess this is mostly adressed to Alec:

I don’t understand why the mainstream interpretation of quantum mechanics invalidates the argument from contingency.

From what I’ve read Bell proposed a theorem about measurement that relies on the assumptions that 1) nothing moves faster than light and 2) that the world is “real” in that particles have a real position and a real momentum et cetera. He said that if these conditions are true then measurements will not influence each other to more than a certain degree. But when they conducted tests they found Bell’s theorem was violated, so one or more of the assumptions had to be abandoned.

Because of Einstein’s theories about the speed of light many physicists chose to abandon assumption 2) and say that particles don’t have a real position and a real momentum, that there is similar inherent uncertainty about energy and time and this is how we can have spontaneous generation of large amounts of energy (and thus matter) on short intervals of time.

But I’ve read that there are other physicists such as Bohm who have rejected assumption 1) instead of assumption 2). And this is how you get “hidden variable” interpretations of quantum mechanics. From what I know, in hidden variable interpretations you still have causation and not randomness.

There are still other interpretations of quantum mechanics such as the many worlds interpretation which says that all possible outcomes actually happen in different universes.

And this is why I don’t understand why the randomness of the standard interpretation can be used to refute a philosophical argument. All that we know is that the equations of the standard model work very well because they have been confirmed countless times by experiment. But we also know that the same results can be arrived at using other interpretations. These interpretations give us strikingly different conceptions of the world. How can we be certain in choosing one over the other?

How can we be sure that any of these interpretations is an accurate description of the real world? Isn’t it true that quantum mechanics itself is incomplete because it doesn’t contain gravity? Right now physicists are working to unite gravity with quantum mechanics, and what that theory will tell us about the world could very well be strikingly different from the quantum picture.

I guess my main point is that I don’t understand how one of the many interpretations of an incomplete theory that will very probably be soon replaced by a theory with very different philosophical implications can be used to refute a philosophical argument that relies (as I think all philosophy does) on the assumption that human reasoning isn’t inherently flawed.

I hope you’ll take the time to respond to this, especially if I hold wrong beliefs about what quantum mechanics actually is.

Thanks!

 

[theMutant]

Ken:

I think you were clear, but I don’t think it is clear that Thomas’ concepts and modern science’s concepts cannot be compared and contrasted. We should be able to take the phenomena observed by modern science and see if they confirm or refute what Thomas had to say.

I’d suggest that Thomas deserves the respect of an honest examination in the context of modern scientific knowledge. I think he would agree. If it is not possible to compare Thomas and modern science, that should be a conclsuion we arrive at after making a good faith attempt - not before. And as science advances and expands its knowledge, we should try again.

If Thomas was wrong about some things - so be it. If he was right, and he stands up in the context of modern science, we should know that, too. I think he’d jump at the opportunity.

Of course they could be compared and contrasted; but ONLY AFTER ESTABLISHING DEFINITIONS OF TERMS THAT WILL BE THE SAME IN BOTH AREAS. Everything else you say is corrrect and have already confirmed that point previously. You say that we sould only come to the conclusion that they can not be compared after a good faith attempt. I think that both Alec and I made such and attempt and I made that conclusion as a result of that attempt.

IF we could establish relavent terms with consistent definitions in BOTH areas of study, then we could and should make such a comparisson and, I firmly believe, that not only will Thomas’s conclusions be found to be true, that much, if not all, of what Alec has brought forth will also. Without a common understanding of language, a valid comparrison of Thomas’s arguments and the theories of modern theoretical physics is simply not possible.

 

[bengeorge]

Ken:

I don’t know why. Do we need a reason?

I guess, technically speaking, no one NEEDS an answer to “why?” for anything. But that seems like an unscientific attitude.

 

[Ken]

bengeorge:

I guess, technically speaking, no one NEEDS an answer to “why?” for anything. But that seems like an unscientific attitude.

Depends on the subject being considered. Do all subjects demand a scientific attitude?

 

[bengeorge]

Ken:

Depends on the subject being considered. Do all subjects demand a scientific attitude?

If you are a materialist, I would say yes, all subjects require a materialist’s attitude of “this can be explained scientifically”.

And the subject I was considering was “Why emotional reaction to the idea of God?”

As a non-materialist, I don’t believe that all phenomena can be explained strictly in material terms.

 

[Ken]

bengeorge:

If you are a materialist, I would say yes, all subjects require a materialist’s attitude of “this can be explained scientifically”.

And the subject I was considering was “Why emotional reaction to the idea of God?”

As a non-materialist, I don’t believe that all phenomena can be explained strictly in material terms.

So, I guess there is no issue here.

 

[JPrejean]

hecd2:

Let’s think about this. I am not advocating nihilism. All I have said is that modern cosmologies and QM undermine the logical argument from causation. Linde’s isn’t the first. Nor is the Hartle-Hawking one or the Hoyle, Bondi and Gold steady state one.

None of these things disprove a theistic metaphysics - they just refute the argument FOR god from the uncaused cause.

Maybe I’m just confused because I don’t particularly see where this is relevant to St. Thomas’s argument if you are not advocating nihilism. St. Thomas’s argument deals with metaphysical causation, and you seem to be arguing that because there is no need for physical causation, there is also no need for metaphysical causation. However, even St. Thomas’s own theory requires that at least one event, the creation ex nihilo, lacks a physical cause (since there are no physical conditions even existent to produce it). But it does not lack an efficient (metaphysical) cause, viz., God. My point is that skepticism about metaphysical causation strikes me as inherently nihilistic. I have no notion whatsoever as to how one might simultaneously claim to be engaging in rational philosophy while rejecting metaphysical causation entirely, Hume’s and Popper’s valiant efforts toward that objective notwithstanding. ISTM that you are asserting that the absence of a need for a physical cause implies the absence of a need for a metaphysical cause, and the latter strikes me as nihilism.

Now, maybe you are instead arguing that the example of this event not being physically caused creates doubt about the notion that our experience necessarily leads us to the concept of metaphysical causation. After all, if there is this uncaused physical event out there, who’s to say that the case isn’t analogous for metaphysical causation? The problem is that the experience of causation from which metaphysical causation is derived has nothing at all to do with whether everything has a physical cause. Indeed, as even Hume would note, it is not empirical observation that rationally proves causation to us in the first place (hence, the problem of induction). Rather, it is the sense of our own experiences being caused that leads us to the notion of causation, which we in turn apply to the world around us. We instinctively take metaphysical causation for granted by presuming that we can usefully reason about anything at all, and that’s why I think that the contrary position is ultimately nihilistic and useless. Here’s an article that echoes that general proposition:
radicalacademy.com/studentrefphil6j.htm

But actually, in one important sense we differ, in that I am very dubious about the lasting value of attempting to uncover truth by pure logic.

I’m definitely not advocating any sort of pure a priorism in the manner of Descartes, and neither was St. Thomas. On the contrary, we both assume the integral role of experience, and more particularly, understanding experiences coherently in order to arrive at truthful positions. This is why I think you got me all wrong in the previous post about “delicate metaphysical sensibilities.” I’m not starting out thinking about how things ought to be, and then attempting to impose that construct on my experience. Rather, I am simply understanding how it is that my reason interacts with my experience and explaining why such an interaction is useful or meaningful. If you assume that it is not useful or meaningful, then ISTM that you must be rejecting philosophy as an endeavor outright.

 

[john_doran]

hecd2:

Dear Matt,

Blowing smoke?

Do you have the faintest notion about what the community of mathematicians have and haven’t done? I tell you what - post a reference to a scientific or mathematical paper that shows, claims or even hints that individual radioactive decay events depend on a specific prior event.

That would require you to post a hypothesis for predicting the occasion of an event of radioactive decay - it’s never been done and almost all (all?) professional physicists accept it can’t be done - these events are truly random and formally uncaused.

Do you have evidence that you can post to the contrary?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

i’ll bite.

establishing the possibility (probability?) that the world is both local and real was the goal of Eisnstein, Podolsky, and Rosen with their articulation of what has come to be known as the EPR thought-experiment. the idea they had was that quantum mechanics is incomplete, and that the statistical limitations of the theory (i.e. it’s ability to deal with stochastic rather than individual events) was an epistemological limit rather than an ontological one - i.e. that just because we don’t know how to predict individual events (and properties) doesn’t mean that there aren’t individual events (and properties).

bohm and de broglie were of like mind and both formulated versions of quantum mechanics based on this assumption.

these are now called hidden variable theories, and are championed by a number of physicists, albeit a minority of the community. they postulate that there is a sort of subquantum level of reality which is not directly perceivable by us, but which determines the quantum world in much the same way as classical mechanics is understood to determine the macroscopic world.

… to be continued

 

[john_doran]

… the rest

a guy named bell is thought to have demonstrated the impossibility of hiden variables with his formulation of what is known as bell’s inequality, experimental support for which is popularly understood (just what these experiments showed is, in fact, disputed) to have culminated in the experiments of a french scientist named aspect.

however, what bell showed is in fact only that the quantum world must be either local or real, but not both. in other words, either you accept the copenhagen interpretation and reject the idea that there are such things as particles that exist independently of being observed, with definite properties like position and momentum, or you give up the idea that there can be superluminal (faster-than-light) interactions.

and, as i observed in my first post, above, at that point it simply comes down to the strength of your respective convictions: which one of the two alternatives do you believe less strongly? for me, it’s locality - i am much, much less certain that information cannot be communicated faster than the speed of light than i am that the world, all the way down, has specific, objective existence.

i could go on, but i can’t be bothered and i think alec probably knows most of this anyway.

here’s some readings, if anyone’s interested:

general:

1. fact-index.com/h/hi/hidden_variable_theory.html
2. freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/Papers/The%20Record/TheRecord.htm

papers:

1. intercom.net/~tarababe/dissertation.pdf
2. math.rutgers.edu/~oldstein/papers/crlet.pdf
3. xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/9810/9810080.pdf

• jd

 

[john_doran]

hecd2:

Dear RMP,

No it doesn’t exclude Him. I think that it is impossible for any scientific theory, hypothesis or method to exclude God or special miracles from the universe.

My contention is that modern concepts of physics refute Thomas’s argument of the uncaused cause for God as a necessary agent; but they do not refute the possibility of God’s existence (and I believe there is a strong argument that no scientific argumants can ever refute the possibility of God’s existence; it is, I think, logically impossible to *prove *that God doesn’t exist.)

Alec

but they don’t refute aquinas at all - they simply either ignore his point (as linde does in the paper you posted earlier), or they just flat-out reject it (as hawking does when he reifies imaginary time in his cosmological model in an attempt to avoid the initial singularity).

these are hardly refutations - they are, at best, an indication of the philosophical/theoretical preferences of the scientists whose positions they represent.

there is at any rate, something wholly bizarre about the notion that a scientific theory could somehow decisively refute the most basic motivating, unifying, and guiding scientific principle - namely that everything that comes into being or changes in some way is caused to do so (“from nothing, nothing comes”). i mean, what would happen to cloud-chamber experiments and particle accelerators if causality was actually demonstrated to be a false principle? the whole scientific method is based on the principle of causality…

in fact, what i think physicists mean when they speak of “uncaused” events is something like “unpredictable”, or even “inherently unpredictable”. which is not the same thing as “coming into being from nothing”.

but that is as may be. at the very least there is nothing any more unreasonable in accepting the logic of aquinas’ (and others’) argument than there is in rejecting something like the principle of causality.

 

[Sherlock]

Hecd,

I have found this thread to be very interesting, though I am not a scientist.

I am wondering about this side statement of yours: “I find it very interesting that only one ‘loving’ Catholic on this message board has contributed to the good cause of helping the homeless victims of Hurricane Ivan in Grenada.”

Say what? What are you deriving this from?

 

[Sherlock]

Hecd2,

In an effort to answer your puzzling claim that, “I find it very interesting that only one ‘loving’ Catholic on this message board has contributed to the good cause of helping the homeless victims of Hurricane Ivan in Grenada”, and receiving no answer to my previous post wherein I asked what the heck that claim was based on, I went to your website. Ahh, I see that you are involved in relief efforts. Good for you. But since you have previously dismissed arguments in this thread as “a logical dog’s breakfast” (nice phrase), I have to ask: how is it that you “know” that only one Catholic on this message board has contributed to the cause of helping the homeless victims of Hurricane Ivan in Grenada? Or is it that only those who contribute to YOUR particular charity count in your eyes as contributors? If so, why? And if so, please explain why it is that you, as an agnostic, would expect that ‘loving’ Catholics (using your term) would choose to fund your particular charity over, say, a Catholic one, such as Catholic Relief Services or other Catholic entities. As a Catholic, I give to Catholic charities that recognize man as more than just an interesting combination of molecules.

Have you read much Chesterton? There’s a great quote from him, the gist of which (sorry, don’t have the exact quote in front of me) is that “‘agnostic’ is only the Greek word for the Latin word ‘ignorant’”.

 

[steve_n_theresa]

Grampa was a mathemetician and such a soul that he needed somebody to prove God’s existance. Mom converted from Baptist to Catholicism. Grampa constantly baited her with questions of “prove it”, laughing when she couldn’t prove God.

My mom finally said “Dad, you can present all kinds of arguments that God doesn’t or shouldn’t or needn’t exist. There reaches a pointwhen you have to accept, by faith, that He does. You don’t get faith naturally, you have to ask for it.”

Mom painted a painting, while she was seeking the answers to his questions. She used faces from civilizations in history, which, to her represented the personality of God as she understood Him. Authority, Wisdom and that which proceeds from those when properly used, Love/peace/charity/faith/hope etc. She sought the facets of God, as revealed to humanity.
She found portions of the persons we call God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son, and men who, exhibiting those portions, became “gods” in effigy. The common denominator between them all was their benevolence.

Can I reasonably claim that most societies, even the aboriginal, (even the new species discovered and announced only days ago), have some awareness of a Power beyond their own?

The Catechism says that humanity has something written into us that seeks God, which to me , is the Church’s recognition that non-educated humanity recognized a Great unfathomed Something. . (Do not interpret this as slam on education, please.)
Mom painted faces of leaders who’s personalities reflected Authority, Wisdom and that which proceeds from those… In the middle of her painting she hung a scale , the chain disappearing into clouds. On either end of the scale she put things representing the pure form of prayers and possessions.
Back to Grampa, who saw this painting for about 15 years. It said to him “You have to ask for faith, Dad.” The most he would ever say is that, yes, there seemed to be a power.

In 1993, we got a phone call from my 2 cousins who said “Grampa’s in the hospital, dying.” He was thrashing around and very distressed. Mom said “Get a priest. Ask Grampa if he wants to be baptised.” After much phoning, taking turns to leave Grampa’s room to do so, the 1st cousin found his parish priest standing in the hallway. The priest had been unreachable, intending to visit somebody upstairs and just happened to get off on the wrong floor.
He asked, and Grampa said yes, was baptised at age 93, and went to sleep, and died about 3 in the afternoon. Good Friday 1993.
All I could say to my Mom was " I bet Grampa was surprised when he opened his eyes and said ‘wow, Helen was right after all’."

What’s the probability of one particular priest, accidentally getting off at a particular floor of a hospital in the multitude of hospitals in New York?

I have witnessed many people, even priest, who have been educated right out of their ability to be open to faith. ( No slam intended, please)
I know my brain can’t explain God, or why might God exist or not exist. But I also know that IF what is said about God is true, I want to be with God. If it means asking for Faith to accept Him on Faith alone, then God grant me such Faith.

He’s allowed me reasons to believe He exists. He does NOT force Himself upon me either. I have to seek God. I believe he gave us an aspect of Himself, which is most like Himself, freedom of will. Even He won’t violate that.
Some folks argue faith is merely seeking reasons to give yourself an excuse to seek “a god”, so to be comforted by the great daddy who can make all things okay.

Somehow I suspect there are no cynics in heaven but at least one former cynic is still saying “Wow, Helen was right!”

Theresa

 

[buffalo]

If you add quantum physics together with the Big Bang, you eliminate the idea on a non expanding universe. The implications are huge and run you smack into God.

Qunatum physics is probablistic and and to see the actauality of the probability requires an observer. This defeats materialism.

BTW - the Bible says on the first day God created light. The planets and cosmos later. This lines up very neatly with the big bang theory.

 

[steve_n_theresa]

Doesn’t THEORY mean basically “What if we accept as true the things I am about to say” ? So, all that stuff about “theory” is really just about bunch of “what-ifs” right? What-if’s based on other what-if’s.

We start our Bible with a big “What if…”

I’m am absolutely sure that the academics among you have run up against jealousy aka politics among your peers. In my world, as a Kelly worker, I run up against office politics virtually everywhere I am assigned. I’m 50 yrs old. I observe, and stay out of it, if possible. But I do learn comparative lessons.

Ok, we got a book with a story of a spirit, VP, the greatest intellectual spirit created right up next to the Boss, who is Pure Spirit. Then the Boss tells his plans and the VP says “HEY that’s not fair, You are one of us and now you say you will be one of them, so they can be up here with us! Not Fair! They don’t have all the abilities you gave to us!”
(Personal experience: “Why is a stranger to our business, (Theresa) acting as secretary to the boss, when I could do that job better? Anybody here could do that job much better.” )

VP refuses to recognize ownership of the company that the Boss created, and the authority which that ownership bestows.
VP gets a whole buncha other spirits to go on strike, and the Boss does not violate their free will. They battle with the other spirits who loyally say “The Boss is the Boss. His way OR the highway.”

We call this the battle of Good and Evil.

If Evil wanted to hide the truth, wouldn’t making creatures ask the eternal questions “Why, why why?” be a good start?
“Why” would God love a lesser creature with lesser knowledge, so much, as to become one of them, and worse yet, subject to them!? What sort of God is this? Is this a really god or just another one of these spirits? Fractured thought follows which results in the question of if there even is a God"

“Why” did that boss who hired me through Kelly want me more than other people within his organization?

What is the one thing that stands between the VP and his minions accepting God’s right to be God? False Pride in thinking they can run God’s business better than he can?

What is the one thing which stands between my fellow workers and their moving closer to their boss? Their false pride in thinking they can run his company better than he can, thwarting his efforts with passive resistance actions?

What is the one thing which stands between people who will not ask for faith and actually gaining faith? False pride, in that they think they know more than God does, and can prove it with a mere human mind?

I challenge any of you who do not believe in God to merely ask for reasons to ask for faith. I challenge you also to not be scared when they are given to you. I personally, was filled with awe.

Theresa

 

[GaryZak]

JN 20:29 Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

LK 12:37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.

Who’s the FISHERMAN, and who’s ,“ON THE LINE LOOKING TO BE CAUGHT???”

All the Lord has to is SHOW HIMSELF a little at any MOMENT you’re looking and YOU’RE ALL TOAST:

MT 13:11 He said to them in reply, "Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.

MT 13:44 "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

MT 13:45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.

MT 13:47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.

MT 13:52 And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”

MT 20:1 "The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard.

Gravity is 9.8 m/s2 on the Earth, X distance from this sun… By the same conscious awareness that Gravity ,“CAN BE OBSERVED,” can YOU OBSERVE that folks CANNOT DO BADLY ONTO TO THEIR NEIGHBORS, with receiving ,“IN KIND BEHAVIOR,” back? Anything proven to be true, must be true by ,"OBSERVATION, " this is BASIC, but maybe YOU’LL all catch the MOBY DICK of SIGNS!

 

[clmowry]

hecd2:

Uh, no.

The uncertainty principle disallows the concept of a field with zero value and zero rate of change. Not only is the non-zero value of the scalar fields in ‘empty space’ from which spontaneous quantum generation of partcle/antiparticle pairs arise good theoretical physics - it also predicts empirically measurable phenomena. The detection of the Casimir effect to an error better than 5% demonstrates the fact of these quantum effects of spontanaeous ‘uncaused’ phenomena.

Many models of the universe have the total matter-energy equal to zero. In the early universe quarks and anti-quarks annihilate to form photons (the phptons of the CMB that we can still observe). The current extant ordinary matter results from an excess of quarks over anti-quarks of one part in a billion. A billion quark/antiquark pairs annihilate for every one quark that survives. Potential energy due to gravity, expansion of the universe, and the total mass of ordinary matter sum in many models to zero. The universe might well be a zero sum game.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

Hehe…and creation is supposed to be unbelievable.

 

[ISABUS]

hecd2:

I think that it is impossible for any scientific theory, hypothesis or method to exclude God or special miracles from the universe.

Alec
homepage.ntlworld.com/macandrew/Grenada_disaster/Grenada_disaster.htm

I find it very interesting that only one ‘loving’ Catholic on this message board has contributed to the good cause of helping the homeless victims of Hurricane Ivan in Grenada.

Dr. MacAndrew, Alec ~ << hecd2? >>>

Dear One, mercy me, how thoughtful of you to acknowledge to the group my active participation in your relief efforts to help the homeless people of Grenada. Their plight makes me weep when I think that a third of them are children. God bless those sweet, innocent children who awaken all “childlike” souls toward human compassion. They are life’s greatest miracle!

As previously mentioned to you in the past, I’ve dedicated a lifetime of love, energy, time, and money to aide human beings who are in need of help. Often times, it seems to go unnoticed so I am delighted and deeply appreciative of this public gesture for it softens the pain I often feel for the children and adults who continue to suffer from the aftermath of natural or manmade disasters. Their salvation from needless despair depends on “our” unconditional, tender love and support so that they may overcome all barriers that prevent them from enjoying a better future ~ A future free from travesty and injustice. Let there never be borders placed around our giving whatever the cause!

Again, thank you, my dear friend, for this unexpected surprise upon my return and for helping those in need. May all that we do in our lifetime be done in the name of LOVE ~

and so it is with Love,

Mary
(I’ll be puttz’n through some loose DNA threads over the next few days. I’m still working on the letter and the calendar is a GO! Tonight I have a pair of wings. I’m an angel. Flying off…it’s Halloween! )

 

[ISABUS]

Sherlock:

[snip

As a Catholic, I give to Catholic charities that recognize man as more than just an interesting combination of molecules.

.

I’m a Catholic too and you’ve hurt my feelings. I’m also a human being who has real tears in my eyes.

Isabus
[/quote]

 

[Philthy]

hecd2:

There are several flaws in this argument:

1. causation is what we observe in this universe. It is perfectly possible to conceive of another universe in which the concept of causation that we observe in this universe does not exist. (Indeed, the concept of causation, in the sense of deterministic contingency, is considerably weakened in this universe by the findings and principles of Quantum Mechanics). For example, spontaneous, ‘uncaused’ generation of particle/anti-particles pairs from the vacuum are a fundamental part of modern physics and are the basis for the Hawking radiation of black holes
2. There are several models for multiverse theory (particularly those posited by Andrei Linde and others) which credibly propose a temporally infinite universe
3. Logically if we are able to posit a Being that exists infinitely, **the same logic would support a physical universe with the same properties. In our experience, physical realities pre-date and encompass ‘Beings’. **

A knowledgeable analysis of the evidence seen in the context of ‘causation’ and ‘determinism’ as modified by our modern understanding of the quantum universe, is able to conclude logically in agreement with Laplace’s statement about why the concept of God did not appear in his work:

‘I had no need of that hypothesis.’

Alec
evolutionpages.com

Alec-

Sounds like some awesome stuff which I no longer have a hope of understanding! As you later say - it requires an understanding of the “maths”. I do, however, think I have a fairly decent mind when it comes to philosophical critical analysis. Most people can’t get beyond the basics in forming a coherent argument.
I would like to understand some of the things you stated in this post better:
From 1) Could you please explain what you mean by an “uncaused particle”. How can you truly know something is uncaused? Don’t you really mean that if there is a cause it is outside the realm of science? Even within the realm of science wouldn’t the claim of knowledge of a lack of cause require a complete understanding of the allegedly credible “multiverse” scenario you propose to exclude it as being part of the particles generation?

From 2) are the “temporally infinite” universe scenarios you describe an endpoint scenario, beginning point scenario, or what?
How do we unite temporally infinite stuff with the finite within the realm of science?

**From 3) "**if we are able to posit a Being that exists infinitely, the same logic would support a physical universe with the same properties." This is a strong indication that you truly misunderstand that science may not hold all the answers. Lets look at your critical analysis:
Premise 1: We can posit an eternal being
Premise 2: Whatever logic we apply to eternal beings can
be applied to the physical universe.
Conclusion:We can posit an eternal physical universe.

Sorry my friend, but premise number 2 is invalid and therefore so is the conclusion. The eternal being posited in premise one does not, by necesity, need to be confined to laws of physical nature/physics. If a being can exist outside of nature (time and space), science will not be able to access a knowledge of this being.

Hey, as an aside, is the concept of the amount of energy in our universe being a constant still valid? I wondered because it was the first thought that popped in my head when you spoke of uncaused particles - do they not contain matter/energy? Or do they always (theoretically) appear in pairs of some type of enegry/anti-energy compo that neutralizes their energy contribution to “our-verse” (our universe in the traditional sense)?

Thanks,

Phil