Regression to something (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, September 05, 2011, 13:14 (4807 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The first verses of Genesis follow the Big Bang. "1:3 is the opening act of the story of creation". (In the Beginning Of, by Judah Landa,2004) "Let there be light". Light is energy. At first there is always energy. Energy can stay as energy or can become any form of matter. Matter is made up of various particles of energy. An atom is made up of smaller particles of energy down to quarks and force fields mediated by particles. I don't think you undertand this. My philosophy prof was only stating fact. Energy is energy. It is a zoo of particles in various families, positively charged, negative, or with no charge. Matter is on the outside and energy particles are on the inside, is another way of putting it. Of course, he was defining 'mind' as pure energy, as it is. Yes, energy goes all the way back, and has always existed, either as my UI or as a potential set of quanta as the way the space in our universe is formed, a false vacuum (Stenger).-Your rump is energy, how energetic is for you to say. That picket fence is energy. Finally, energy may change but always exists. The total of all energy in this universe is constant. It can be neither created or destroyed. Guth is allowed to use his formula. So finally my statements are not confusing: Either a UI (energy) made the Big Bang and created this universe out of energy, or a false vacuum of space has always existed and a quantum perturbation went poof and our universe appeared. We MUST be part of something eternal.-A quick reply before I devote what little remains of my energy to a few days in Paris.-Thank you for this very helpful scientific explanation of the alternatives which sound so much more convincing than they do in my cack-handed layman's terminology. It is precisely the either/or that was missing from the conclusion which so bewildered me: "This sure makes the Big Bang a creation. The UI is pure energy and has existed forever into the past." I would not dream of contradicting your prof when he tells us that energy is energy, and I am happy to accept that energy goes all the way back, and that we MUST be part of something eternal. And I am even happier to accept that the something is either your UI, or Stenger's "false vacuum". You are a theist, Stenger is an atheist, and the alternatives, in cack-handed layman's language, are either there is a UI or there isn't. The perfect agnostic conclusion.