Origin Myths (Introduction)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 19:44 (5462 days ago) @ David Turell

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