Infinity Lover

This is the part that always puzzles me. Do these cosmologists also all agree on what time precisely is? Not so long ago there was a thread in philosophy on that subject, and quite a complicated lenghty one, with varying opinions.

Personally I think it's not so much a matter of everything that exists changing and moving through time, but rather the change and motion of everything that exists being preceived in terms of time.

One thing I've gathered, is that for as far scientists refer to the big bang as something coming out of nothing (for lack of a better choice of words), they're getting kind of playfull with English. Nothing, but not really nothing, not really no time before the big bang, but rather no time as we know it; Whatever that means.

But perhaps I'm opening an off-topic prone can of worms here.

eh

Well in cosmology that goes beyond the big bang, such as inflation, you'll often hear about creation from nothing. This is misleading to say the least. Many theories say the visible universe emrged from the vacuum as a vacuum fluctuation that grew to imense size. Since the net energy of any such universe is zero, many have called the universe the ultimate free lunch. Though the vacuum may have been viewed as nothing hundreds of years ago, today that's not the case. So it's not really a case of creation from nothing.

But it appears some cosmologists go beyond any pre existing space, and propose models where the universe formed literally out of nothing. Alexander Vilenkin comes to mind, for one. But upon closer inspection, these models simple deify the laws of physics and propose a state where the universe did not exist. Instead of being descriptive laws of the physical world, the laws of physics become some kind of mystical "thing" and could exist even in the absence of the universe. But again, it isn't really creation from nothing.

faustuz

Below I’ve posted links that support either support that time began at t=0. Every description of the big bang says either that time began at t=0 (that seems to be the predominant view), or that it is simply meaningless to discuss time near t=0. The latter, as far as I’m concerned, is equivalent to the former for the purposes of the Cosmological argument. Such problems as infinite regress, need for causal agents in a temporal universe, and other such metaphysical difficulties become meaningless if one doesn’t even have a comprehensible concept of time. Below is just a tiny sample of what I’ve found so far.

http://www.draaisma.net/rudi/science...onal_time.html :

The present perception of the expanding universe is still that of a spatial one, that somewhere would have started at some time. This perception leads to the known Singularity of the initial Big Bang. In the following it will become clear, that there was no "somewhere". It was not the beginning of a spatial world but the beginning of a time world; a world (universe) without a "before" and beyond any means of observation. This time-world is the surface of an expanding time-sphere, constituting the present moment (Universal Being Time; UBT). The beginning of time is absolute by not having had a "before", just as there are no negative temperatures on the Kelvin scale either. We can accept absolute temperature, so why not absolute time?

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11839.html

An infinite universe can have an origin at a finite moment in the past because, in general relativity, one can have a 'singularity' condition in which the volume of 3-d space vanishes at a finite moment in the past, so that even if the 3-d space was still infinite at that moment, the separations between nearby and distant points reached a limit of zero separation at the same time. Rather than having to drag this moment into the eternal past to 'logically' solve the problem ( which would not work physically), you can solve the problem at the instant of creation, and place this instant at a finite time in the past..

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc.../creation.html :

In a very recent paper, Hawking (1987) very briefly expressed the sort of view I advocate here when he wrote:
In general relativity, time ... does not have any meaning outside the spacetime manifold. To ask what happened before the universe began is like asking for a point on the Earth at 91 north latitude; it just is not defined. Instead of talking about the universe being created, and maybe coming to an end, one should just say: The universe is.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc.../creation.html

Thus, even if the singular Big Bang were included as an event having occurred at a bona fide moment of time t=0, this hypothetical instant had no temporal predecessor. A fortiori, it could not have been preceded by a state of nothingness, even if the notion of such a state were well-defined.
As we now see, physical processes of some sort already existed at every actual instant of past time. After all, despite the finite duration of the past, there was no time at all at which the physical world did not exist yet. Thus, we can say that the Big Bang universe always existed, although its age is only, say, somewhere between 8 or 15 times 109 years. Here, the word "always" means "for all actual times," but it does not guarantee that time, past or future, is of infinite duration in years.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc.../creation.html

[Note, in the following link this guy acknowledges that time started at t=0, yet he tries to say that God exists outside of time and caused the Universe nonetheless. He has a metaphysical difficulty, so he comes up with an even more convoluted and bizarre concept to explain it. The lengths theologists will go to!]

We should therefore say that the cause of the origin of the universe is causally prior to the Big Bang, though not temporally prior to the Big Bang. In such a case, the cause may be said to exist spacelessly and timelessly sans the universe, but temporally subsequent to the moment of creation.

[Finally, for those who hope for an out using quantum gravity, this link from our very own II. Most likely, quantum gravity either still allows the existence of the singularity, or discussing time becomes meaningless near t=0 and so we shouldn’t try to make metaphysical claims at all]

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...eological.html

…as of yet, there is no definitive theory of quantum gravity. Nevertheless, we can still ask what quantum gravity might say about the origin of the universe. According to Penn State physicist Lee Smolin, there are three possible scenarios:
• [A] There is still a first moment in time, even when quantum mechanics is taken into consideration.
• [B] The singularity is eliminated by some quantum mechanical effect. As a result, when we run the clock back, the universe does not reach a state of infinite density. Something else happens when the universe reaches some very high density that allows time to continue indefinitely into the past.
• [C] Something new and strange and quantum mechanical happens to time, which is neither possibility A or B. For example, perhaps we reach a state where it is no longer appropriate to think that reality is composed of a series of moments that follow each other in a progression, one after another. In this case there is perhaps no singularity, but it may also not make sense to ask what happened before the universe was extremely dense.
That’s enough for now, but If I still find doubting Thomases, I’ll find more.

Galan

Hi all. For some new and advanced thinking on this subject, I would suggest that everyone take a look at Christopher Michael Langan's Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU):
http://www.ctmu.org/
http://www.teleologic.org/

This is a "theory of everything" that incorporates a much more sophisticated argument for the existence of a "God" than any I've seen. Not saying that I buy all of it, but it seems to be something that should be (and is being) taken very seriously.

One warning though: this is heavy stuff (the man is very smart with an IQ that is literally off the charts), so put your thinking cap on before digging in.

P.S. -- For those who want to skip the formalities and go right to the "meaty stuff," here is the link to his paper that was recently published in "Progress in Complexity, Information and Design," the journal of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design:
http://www.megasociety.net/CTMU/CTMU...TMU_092902.pdf

luvluv

wiploc, I'll ask you to recall that I specifically said that I did not think that the cosmological argument was sound. The cosmological argument establishes only a first cause, and I already conceded that the first cause could be something other than God, but that something could not be "the universe" (by which I mean, as I said previously, space/matter/energy/time). You asked why, in the argument, God was excepted from things which need a cause, and I told you. There isn't any reason that God is assumed not to have begun to exist except that Christians (and probably Muslims and Jews) believe that God has told us this about Himself. In philosophy, the habit was developed of discussing God in terms of the attributes that have historically been attributed to Him. This is true whether the philosopher is atheist or theist.

I do not ask you, for instance, why I should believe that God is omnipotent when you attempt to use omnipotence in the argument from evil. You assume that God has these attributes in an attempt to logically verify or falsify His existence as defined. The only way one can decide whether a certain defintion of God is possible is to proceed from the definitions and see if they are logically consistent. There is no way I can demonstrate to you that God is eternal BUT my point was there is a way to point to the universe and say that IT is not eternal. So as I have said before I do not think that the only possible solution to the cosmological argument is God (though with Craig's additions, this seems to me to be the most plausible explanation), but at the same time I do not believe that it can be the universe.

If you claimed that the Inuit GOD had always existed, I would let you base your claim on that. However, we have evidence that, given our present understanding, strongly suggests the universe began to exist.

Nowhere did I say or suggest that everything but God has a begining. That is nowhere in my argument or in the argument I linked for you. I said in one of my initial posts that the first cause could be some eternal law of physics which had no begining.

Again, to clarify, I do not take the cosmological argument, presented solely, to be sound, but I do think it is reasonable to infer the existence of God from both the teleological and cosmological arguments. I do not think that, taken together, they amount to proofs, but (this is for you Shadow Man) together they make a strong argument for the existence of God.

No seasoned apologist with a sliver of philosophical training would try to use the Cosmological Argument to try to establish the existence of Yahweh. The Cosmological Argument is used to establish the necessity of a First Cause which is not dependant on and is separate to the universe (space/matter/energy/time).

The apologist would then proceed to make a case for why this first cause must be the God of theism. I don't believe I've ever seen an apologist ever try to use the cosmological argument to try to establish that this God is the Christian God, the Jewish God, or Allah. It's only meant to establish the existence of the traditional omnimax God of theism. Nothing more.

I really don't think you're talking past me or that I'm talking past you. I think you've somehow concluded that I am arguing things that I am not arguing. You are questioning me as if I thought the cosmological argument was sound, and I said from the start that I did not. I said that God is assumed to not have had a begining in terms of the cosmological argument, and that is why He does not need a cause. I gave this because you asked "Why in the cosmological argument does God not need a cause". Because I gave you the answer I thought you were asking for, you have come to the conclusion that I am trying to defend the cosmological argument. That was never my intention, as I hope you realize now.

Where did you get this idea? Again, by universe I mean only space/matter/energy/time. I conceded that natural laws could exist independantly from the universe and that natural laws of some sort could be the first cause.

I do not determine that the universe began by applying a rule. That is precisely backwards. Big Bang cosmolgy establishes that the universe began, and proponents of the cosmolgical argument merely use that fact within the argument. The second premise of the cosmological argument is generally "The universe began to exist" and is generally supported by cosmological evidence. No one uses the cosmological argument or the premise "Everything which begins to exist needs a cause" to establish that the universe began to exist.

It is Big Bang cosmology which causes theists to reject the notion that the universe can be eternal and uncaused. We do not reject it's potential for being eternal on some arbitrary rule of apologetics. We do so because this is where science points us. (And again, though I am speaking in the first person here, I do not consider the argument sound.)

I'm pretty sure it is a first principle. It is called, I believe, the principle of causation. Further, I think it is actually the FIRST first principle.

What did you think of Craig's refutations of the appeal to quantum mechanics in the link I gave you?

Part of the reason we are talking past each other is that you are putting words in my mouth. I never disqualified eternal energy on the basis that I found it incoherent. I actually conceded that eternal energy is a possibility, but that I personally found it incoherent. I did not mean to imply that I therefore thought that I had logically excluded the possibility that eternal energy is the first cause, only that it did not seem to make sense to me. (And I, personally, reject it because it would not solve the anthropic coincidences). The use of the word incoherence was entirely incidental on my part, and was intended only to communicate my personal problem with that position. It was not meant to form the basis of an argument.

Talk to your buddy, eh. I think that is actually exactly what they mean.

A first cause is what the cosmological argument (the first three premises anyway) attempts to establish. Generally, it proceeds to use the notions of necessary, efficient, sufficient, and final causation to explain why this first cause must be Intelligent, Omnipotent, and (sometimes, using premises from the Teleological Argument) Omnibenevolent. THEN they establish that a first cause with all of these attributes is God.

eh:

I don't think that causation is entirely dependant on the existence of time. Just because a phenomenon has no temporal causation does not mean it does not require an ontological causation. Even if there was no time before the universe began (and that is debatable, that premise is actually dependant upon the notion that THIS universe is the only universe which exists. Even the multiverse conjecture makes it unnecessary to assume this) the fact that the universe began would still require a cause.

The fact that there was no temporally prior cause to the Big Bang would not exclude it from the necessity of an ontologically prior cause.

faustuz

Wouldn't that do wonders for the Cosmological argument if the universe turns out to be one in a multiverse. Then we won't even need to even consider the concept anymore.

eh

Actually, I'd say it does. Energy needs no cause, nor can it be created or destroyed. Thus, the universe did not begin to exist. The big bang is merely the minimum time, and intital condition of the universe. There is no logical reason why time must have an infinite past. Much like how you can have an infinite amount of numbers, there is always the minimum starting point (one) when counting.

Likewise, a God cannot be a superior explaination. Either there is a first thought in the mind of God, or an infinite regress of thoughts. How do you suggest we resolve this?

luvluv

eh:

What theory or law establishes this? We know now that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but we also know the same thing about matter. But we do not say that matter can emerge without a cause and I do not think it is correct to say that all energy is causeless.

I'm not arguing that it does. What I am arguing is that causation is not dependant on time. Even absent time, a sufficient cause for the universe is still necessary.

Actually, I don't think you can have an actually infinite amount of numbers which are all positive integers. Such a string would have to stop (in one direction at least) at one, and thus by definition be finite. It would be potentially infinite, but never actually infinite.

God is defined in all major religions as eternal, which is to say He is essentially atemporal. If the Christian God exists, He has no "first thought", or first anything. He is not bound by time. So if He exists, this would not be a problem.

In fact, though this may make God difficult to comprehend, I doubt He "thinks" in the manner you and I describe, at all. Thinking implies processing information or concepts. What does omniscience have to "think" about? Wouldn't all conclusions, which are the only aims of the process of thought, be everpresent to Him? I think this is an example of us conceiving of God in our narrow terms.

luvluv

faustuz:

Not quite. There would still need to be a first universe to avoid an infinite regress of universes.

My only point is that the notion of time begining at the big bang is sort of begging the question. It assumes that this universe is the only one that exists.

Tercel

Thanks a heap Galan, I just finished reading the paper. I can't honestly say I understood all of it fully, but I was able to follow most of it and I found it very very very interesting.

I found the name "tower of turtles" quite amusing... why turtles? I've always thought of it as a "house of cards without a table" myself. But why turtles?