More "miscellany" (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 01, 2022, 12:14 (787 days ago) @ David Turell

Early quark-gluon plasma

DAVID: Guth proved a universe stated with no 'before'. Accept it, even if you don't like it.

dhw: Your reversion to your original interpretation of Guth’s theory leaves you contradicting yourself to the point of absurdity, since you actually believe that your God existed before our universe and could have made other equally physical universes before ours. Nobody can possibly know what preceded our universe, and you yourself repeatedly reject the very idea that something can come from nothing. “Accept it, even if you don’t like it.

DAVID: Guth simply says no material before exists before our material universe appeared. God is immaterial so your example of God doesn't apply. “Accept it, even if you don’t like it” can not refer to God in a material sense.

QUOTE: “"The primary assumption made by Borde, Guth and Vilenkin however is that the cosmic expansion rate will never get to a nonzero value. There can not be past-eternal inflation, there must be a beginning or singularity."

I don’t have a problem with the concept of our universe having a beginning. I’ve looked up the specialized meaning of singularity: “a hypothetical point in space-time at which matter is infinitely compressed to infinitesimal volume”. But the idea that there was no “before” our beginning depends on this hypothesis being true of our universe. There is a language problem here. We need a word that will expand its meaning beyond that of “universe”. So for argument’s sake, let’s use “cosmos”. It’s obvious that our universe could not have been inflating indefinitely from past eternity, but please explain how anyone can possibly know that our expanding universe was not caused by an isolated event occurring within an infinite and eternal cosmos of ever changing energy and matter and possibly other universes, possibly all created by the conscious immaterial energy you call God, or possibly the result of an endless but mindless process which just like your God has been going on forever? You yourself cannot accept the idea that something can come from nothing, in which case, how can you believe anyone can “prove” that there was no before (material or otherwise) our beginning? In brief, if I’ve interpreted the above quote correctly, Guth’s theory tells us only that our universe must have had a beginning, which of course we can all accept, but it cannot tell us what CAUSED the beginning, i.e. what came before the beginning, and it most certainly cannot “prove” that there was no cause and no “before” other than a hypothetical “singularity” which consisted of all matter being compressed into nothing, i.e. something came from nothing.


Faint sun paradox
DAVID: Oh, I fully understand your position. 'Perhaps' use might soften your rigidity against a solution to the cause of our existence.

dhw: The theist says: “I believe God did it”; the atheist says: “I believe chance did it.” The agnostic says: “I don’t know which “solution” to believe.” The latter automatically entails “perhaps” for both solutions. The two fixed beliefs automatically mean there can be no “perhaps”. So which of us three do you reckon is most rigid?

DAVID: Yours. Atheist and theists have solutions.

dhw: So "I don’t know, but perhaps…" is more rigid than “I know”? :-D or possibly :-(

DAVID: You rigidly have no solutions. :-) ;-)

So I’m rigidily non-rigid. Good ‘un! ;-) :-)

How certain elements surface

DAVID: it seems everything on Earth was designed just right for us to use.

Thank you, God, for designing all the metals just for us and all the lovely flowers and foods and scenery and sights and sounds.:-)
Pity about the floods and famines and disasters and diseases and vicious viruses and bad bacteria…:-(


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