Can\'t avoid a creation (Introduction)

by David Turell @, Friday, January 13, 2012, 02:15 (4677 days ago)

Just as a paper I quoted in my book from 2001, Valenkin is back with another presentation saying thre must have been a beginning for this universe:


http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328474.400-why-physicists-cant-avoid-a-creation...

Sign up to read this!!! There is no harm to you.

Can\'t avoid a creation

by xeno6696 @, Sonoran Desert, Saturday, January 14, 2012, 00:31 (4676 days ago) @ David Turell

Just as a paper I quoted in my book from 2001, Valenkin is back with another presentation saying thre must have been a beginning for this universe:

Heh. Trivial: The Big Bang.

More difficult: How did the singularity get there?

Science clearly takes us up to that point: But there's no possible way we could say with surety that that is all there is to the universe.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328474.400-why-physicists-cant-avoid-a-creation...

Sign up to read this!!! There is no harm to you.

After having read it, this doesn't really move the problem.

The Higgs-Field by itself directly suggests that there are more layers to our onion: If you do some digging, you realize that we already use Higgs-fields to solve many problems in physics--the fact that we haven't found the particle--let's just say that if for some reason we don't find the particle, it would be like looking at the periodic table and saying that there exists an element in Group I that does not contain only one outer valence electron. Finding the particle completes the "proof" of the standard model, but doesn't prevent us from using the mathematics to solve real problems.

If that preceding paragraph seems out of place, it won't now.

If it is even possible to prove that the universe must have a beginning, you still don't have a good recourse to say when exactly that was.

I bring this up because there's been more than one theology in existence (Hindu) that states all things are manifestations of God. (They're... closer to your panentheism.)

My more recent dive into eastern theology answers a question... well, meditation answered the question.

I've spoken before about the non-existence of time, that the only reason we can have time is because we can see things move.

Buddhist meditation--focusing on the present moment--actually helps me think a little more clearly about our old problem of cause and effect. I stumbled across an old post of mine and I discussed "cause and effect" being illusory in the idea that they are necessarily distinct. "Two sides of the same event," is a paraphrase of what I had said.

The uncreated is conceivable.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

Can\'t avoid a creation

by David Turell @, Saturday, January 14, 2012, 01:29 (4676 days ago) @ xeno6696

.


If it is even possible to prove that the universe must have a beginning, you still don't have a good recourse to say when exactly that was.

I understand that. But a beginning suggests some kind of creation from ?, whatever.


I bring this up because there's been more than one theology in existence (Hindu) that states all things are manifestations of God. (They're... closer to your panentheism.)

My more recent dive into eastern theology answers a question... well, meditation answered the question.

I've spoken before about the non-existence of time, that the only reason we can have time is because we can see things move.

Our scientists say time started with the Big Bang. And yes, since the BB things move.

Can\'t avoid a creation

by xeno6696 @, Sonoran Desert, Saturday, January 14, 2012, 21:46 (4675 days ago) @ David Turell

David,

I've spoken before about the non-existence of time, that the only reason we can have time is because we can see things move.


Our scientists say time started with the Big Bang. And yes, since the BB things move.

That doesn't mean time is real. We've discussed this before: There is no physical reality for time, Big Bang or not. The underlying implication is that the universe itself is uncreated. Meaning panentheism is not dead, but knowing that our knowledge stops at the singularity, it is hubris to assert we know anything.

How to prove me wrong:

1. Demonstrate time has a physical reality.

I know you blow me off on this, but it is a FACT that there is no physical basis for time.
You want to challenge me with NDE, I challenge you with time.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

Can\'t avoid a creation

by David Turell @, Saturday, January 14, 2012, 22:56 (4675 days ago) @ xeno6696


How to prove me wrong:

1. Demonstrate time has a physical reality.

I know you blow me off on this, but it is a FACT that there is no physical basis for time.
You want to challenge me with NDE, I challenge you with time.

How do you handle space-time, Einstein fashion? Physics formulae say time can run in both directions. Can you explain. I don't understand either your statements or the spacetime statements.

Can\'t avoid a creation

by xeno6696 @, Sonoran Desert, Saturday, January 14, 2012, 23:20 (4675 days ago) @ David Turell


How to prove me wrong:

1. Demonstrate time has a physical reality.

I know you blow me off on this, but it is a FACT that there is no physical basis for time.
You want to challenge me with NDE, I challenge you with time.


How do you handle space-time, Einstein fashion? Physics formulae say time can run in both directions. Can you explain. I don't understand either your statements or the spacetime statements.

Some of this I think I've covered before... so if it's repetitive, I'm sorry.

Einstein dealt with time by not treating it as a distinct entity--as had everyone before him.

He subsumed time into the concept of distance. (space, hence space-time) This allows you to be able to reason in terms of events, but also means that time is no longer a physically "real" thing. To be succinct: Time is relative, based on the positions of at least two objects, not a property of the universe as say, atoms, or light.

Time can therefore run in two directions, because you can look at an event, and for the sake of abstraction--you can play the event in reverse. Since time has been subsumed into the idea of "distance," (again, synonymous with "space") any event that you can track according to it's relationship in space allows you to "go back in time." Hence, why when we look at a star, we're looking at history--not the present. (Betelgeuse probably detonated a long time ago...)

Above, I put "reason" in italics. I did this purposefully--because reasoning is the only thing that time is. It's an arbitrary... distance between two events.

If you understand what I said above, you understand Einstein's defense of an infinite universe.

In the back of my mind: Einstein may be our Aristotle... we may find in 1000 years that all his ideas were wrong... hence the tension between relativity and quantum mechanics.

But the way things are now...

Time is NOT of the essence of our universe...

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

Can\'t avoid a creation

by dhw, Sunday, January 15, 2012, 13:08 (4674 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: I’ve spoken before about the non-existence of time, that the only reason we can have time is because we can see things move. [...]
It is a FACT that there is no physical basis for time.

We have indeed been over this many times before, but it will bear reconsideration. I like your statement: “To be succinct: Time is relative, based on the positions of at least two objects, not a property of the universe as say, atoms, or light.” ‘Relative’ does not mean ‘non-existent’. I’ll take my usual example: If you don’t jump out of the way of that bus mighty soon, I doubt if you will deny the reality of the sequent process of cause and effect (see below). Yes, time is relative, if you take it as our human way of measuring, and you're right that we can look back (not "go" back)- as astronomers do - at earlier stages of the universe, and that time and distance go together. That still doesn't make it non-existent. We know that like ourselves, stars are born and stars die, that matter changes, that one thing can lead to another. The sequences of cause and effect, and of before and after, are what I would call the physical basis of time, and everything that I have ever observed in myself and the world around me confirms that this is real.

You have argued that “cause and effect” are “illusory in the idea that they are necessarily distinct.” I agree that they are not NECESSARILY distinct, because every cause and every effect is intertwined with other causes and effects, and every effect will itself become a cause and vice versa. But no matter what example you take, there will always be a sequence, and for me it’s the sequence that endows time with its reality: not in the measuring sense of one minute, one hour, one year, but in the sense of a before and after, an earlier and a later.

I would add, though, that I’m wary of the argument that human “realities” are not real because they’re not valid on a cosmic level. That to me undermines the value of life itself. Philosophically, you have to decide the level on which you want to discuss the subject (see our long-lost discussion on epistemology). Our lives are based on intersubjective realities, and if these vary or change completely, the variations and changes will also be real to us. If I agree to meet you at 2 pm and you don’t show up till 3 pm, I shan’t want you to tell me that time doesn’t exist. You can call it a lost hour, heure, hora, Stunde or whatever you like, but the gap itself – the passage between x and y – is every bit as real as the gap between the earth and the sun. So too, let me repeat, is the time remaining between now and your future meeting with the bus!

Can\'t avoid a creation

by dhw, Sunday, January 15, 2012, 12:51 (4674 days ago) @ David Turell

MATT: If it is even possible to prove that the universe must have a beginning, you still don't have a good recourse to say when exactly that was.

DAVID: I understand that. But a beginning suggests some kind of creation from ?, whatever.

We are back to the first cause argument, which I still consider to be words without substance. If this universe had a beginning (e.g. the big bang), what went bang? There is absolutely no way anyone can possibly prove that nothing preceded the coming into being of our universe (assuming it has not been here forever), and the first cause argument that a cosmic mind - a Creator - has always existed (and has been consciously producing new forms) is no more feasible than the first cause argument that mindless cosmic energy has always existed (and has been mindlessly producing new forms). Round we go!

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