That's a really fine article. Thanks for posting the link.-Some slight criticisms: -Marcelo Gleiser writes: "... "Did the world come to be at a specific moment in the past?" That is, "Was there a moment of creation?" The answer can only be "yes" or "no." A "yes" means the universe has a finite age, just as we do; it appeared some time in the past and is still around today. A "no" can mean two things: either the universe has existed forever, an eternal, uncreated cosmos, or it is created and destroyed in a cyclic succession that repeats itself throughout boundless time."-This is a bit too glib in that it makes implicit assumptions about the nature of time. There is something of a paradox in that at time t = 0, time did not exist! - so how can we talk about it being zero? Once this paradox is resolved we may be onto something.-Gleiser: "In this sense, if we equate oneness with the creative force in the cosmos, the search for unified field theories springs from the same source as the "from one the many" creation narratives." -My preference is for a "from none the many", and this does not require any "creative force". He does cite this possibility:-Gleiser: "... the second group of creation myths with a beginning states that the world came out of nothing. There were no gods, no time or space. Suddenly, out of a primordial urge to exist, the cosmos burst into existence on its own."-I don't believe in this "primordial urge to exist" though. The evidence suggests it just happened to happen.
 
Gleiser: "In the quantum world, there is no sharp boundary between being and becoming."-Exactly right.

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GPJ

George and I agree! Marcelo Gleiser's article is superb, and I'd like to thank David for drawing our attention to it. For me this not only sums up the myth and the science, but it also captures the sheer poetry of the universe and human attempts to understand it. -Gleiser has covered a number of the topics we've been discussing in recent weeks, and he has done so with admirable even-handedness. -On the subject of nothing, he talks of a "perpetual effervescence of being. This means that even empty space has fluctuations of energy, that the vacuum is never empty, that there is no such thing as absolute nothingness." It's the word "absolute" that gives me a toehold here.-In relation to the quantum world, he comments: "There is no sharp boundary between being and becoming." George approves of this, and I suspect that Frank, our process theologian, and BBella would also agree in a wider context. In fact, the more you think about that formula, the more it applies to almost everything in our world, including our own identity. -As regards the origin of the universe and validation of the Big Bang model, he asks: "Does this mean [...] that we can explain with confidence how the universe came to be? No. Cosmic infancy is not cosmic conception." Perhaps one well-known evolutionist might learn to apply this expression to the origin of life as well: evolution = infancy and onwards, but not conception. -We've also been discussing the possibility of life elsewhere, but I've struggled a bit with the paragraph in which Gleiser states that "our universe must be unique" and goes on to say: "we are unique because we belong to the tiny subset of cosmoids that can harbor life." If there is a tiny subset, we are not unique, but in any case he admits earlier "we cannot step outside our expanding cosmoid to visit neighbouring ones" ... so we clearly have no way of knowing whether we are or are not unique or even rare. If I've misunderstood this section, perhaps someone can put me right.-Matt in his last post mentioned scepticism, and I have responded to that, but Gleiser puts the positive side much better than I do: "Our eyes, however telescopic and otherwise, are wide open. Not having all the answers is actually a very healthy thing. It is a precondition for learning more." We could almost use that as our motto.