1. Existence (or: The Origin of the Universe)

[Strong Atheist]

This is in response to a subthread a while ago (before I joined DU) where the poster challenged atheists to explain how the universe came about. I would like to respond, but first I would like to say that this is the first of five related posts. You see, IMO, religion is both an idea and a tool, and like all other ideas/tools it is a product of the human imagination. Given this, like all other ideas and tools, it is designed to fill a need; in the case of religion I think that there are five basic human needs that it was invented to fill. One of the most important of these needs is to explain existence.

Now, when people ask where the universe comes from, they are really involved in asking a more fundamental question, which is about the existence of ANYTHING. This question, in turn can be broken down into two distinct questions: WHY things exist and HOW things exist. The first question is not discussed much (nor I suspect thought about, with good reason IMO); the second is the most commonly brought up. Lets look at each of these aspects of the existence question.

WHY THINGS EXIST: I was a Philosophy major as an undergrad, and spent some time thinking about things like this as part of my courses. It seems to me that not only would it be more logical for NOTHING to exist (no objects, no energy, no time, no space), but it seems that that should be the case (the way things should be, or not be in this case). It would certainly be less messy than having all this random STUFF floating around in this weird THING (because space seems to be a thing) called SPACE, going through an even stranger and more incomprehensible thing called TIME. Obviously, it is wrong to think that non-existence is more logical, because non-existence is clearly not the case. Why is that?
After much thought, I can not think of WHY things exist rather than nothing existing, nor have I ever heard a coherent explanation from anyone else. In fact, this aspect of the existence question (WHY do things exist INSTEAD of NOTHING) is rarely addressed, which brings us to the next part of the question.

HOW THINGS EXIST: This part of the question is the one that everyone wants to cover ("How did the Universe come into being?"). Given the caveat that we are really talking about some general THING or THINGS existing rather than the specifics of the universe (which is a subset of the greater set THINGS), we can proceed. Again, after much thought in my classes, I came to the conclusion that there are two possibilities for HOW things came to exist, and I can not conceive of nor have I ever heard of any other possibilities. The possibilities seem to boil down to:

A. some thing(s) HAVE ALWAYS existed, and other things may have flowed from them latter.

B. some thing(s) SUDDENLY "popped into existence", after which all other things came.

I dislike both of these possibilities, for different reasons. Possibility "A" with its infinite chain of causality violates my sense of cause and effect. Possibility "B" offends me because it violates conservation laws. Neither satisfactorily explains HOW things came to be, yet those seem to be the only two possibilities (another reason for arguing that nothing SHOULD exist; it is less messy to explain non-existence than to explain existence).
Theist arguments that I have heard addressing the HOW issue tend to beg the basic question, or or be unnecessarily complicated (which I reject by Occams Razor), or both.

Discuss.

[Freedomfried]

1. Sounds like you scored some GOOD weed tonight.

I can dig it.

[Strong Atheist]

22. No, I am this way all of

the time. I don't do illegal drugs!;) Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do ...

[tocqueville]

2. solution B comes out of a singularity

therefore there is no break. Conservation laws start from the singularity. Why is not possible to know, because events before the singularity are not measurable.

[xchrom]

4. bingo

and i'm a believer.

[Strong Atheist]

5. So where did the singularity,

a THING for purpose of this discussion, come from?

[Spinzonner]

8. A singularity is a singularity

it's not a thing in any space-time sense as you seem to want to categorize it. What we experience as space-time - though it exists without us - is a realization of the singularity's explosive manifestation into the universe.

[Strong Atheist]

9. Either a singularity is SOMETHING , or

it is NOTHING. Does SINGULARITY = NOTHING?

[Spinzonner]

10. Tell me what 'something' and 'nothing' are

[Strong Atheist]

13. Those are intuitively obvious, like what

pornography famously is and isn't. I do not have time to get into a semantic definition debate right now, I must go back to work, bu tI believe that you and I both know the difference between "something" and "nothing":eyes: I think that you may be deliberately avoiding my question as to whether a SINGULARITY = NOTHING or not ;-)

[Spinzonner]

14. I think that your thinking is tainted by your existence as a four-

dimensional entity which only has realization in the existence of the universe which is outside of and, arguably, a product of the singularity's change of state.

Your 'intuition' is useless in this context and semantics are everything. You cannot discuss the question without understanding the terms. I'm not avoiding anything, I'm requiring you to focus on the fundamentals of the question, which you rather obviously don't really understand (as Deep Thought noted) rather than a simplistic answer.

[Strong Atheist]

19. Ok. I will

give my answer to the question. A singularity is not = Nothing. A singularity has mass, takes up space, and heck, DISTORTS space. Therefore it is an existing thing. Which brings us back to my question in post #5. Where did the singularity come from (HOW of the OP), and how did all the stuff (Universe) come from it? You, the OP asked how THINGS came to exist, and a singularity is a thing, thus saying that solution B comes out of a singularity BEGS THE BASIC QUESTION. ;)

[papau]

44. Where did a 14 billion year old event come from?

It is that exact age thing that makes this such an interesting question.

[Spinzonner]

51. Not all singularities are created equally

You seem to be confused about some proposed singularities associated with Black Holes and the singularity (the Mother of All SIngularities ?) from which the Universe derives under the Big Bang theory. Your quaint notions of mass and space are simply meaningless preceeding the emergence of the Universe. It didn't come FROM anything or anywhere. Your attempts to apply the notion of causality in the absense of time - which doesn't exist either unntil the existence of the Universe - is similarly misguided.

The question is not begged at all. You simply don't understand the real implications - and inapplicability - of your question. You are attmepting to frame things within the confines of your personal perpective about the nature of existence - and so-called laws of nature - which is only menaingful in an existing Universe - that which doesn't apply prior to that existence.

[Silverhair]

73. The universe came from a couple of oscillating brane that touch sometimes.

Seriously - the "Brane Theory" is being hotly discussed in cosmological circles. It has some good math supporting it, and explains one of the problems of the "Big Bang" theory in dealing with the first few nanoseconds of the Bang.

[Spinzonner]

78. Mathematically, of course

the experimental proof is likely to be a bit tricky ....

[ozone_man]

100. In theory, one could make a universe in the laboratory.

It's all in the mathematics of M-theory. "God" is just a bumbling scientist in a lab somewhere playing with M-theory equations. :)

NARRATOR: But this isn't quite the end of the story. Now that the Theory of Everything may have been found some are keen to use it. Physics is preparing for the ultimate flight of fancy: to make a universe of its very own without any mysteries or unanswered questions at all.

ALAN GUTH: I in fact have worked with several other people for some period of time on the question of whether or not it's in principle possible to create a new universe in the laboratory. Whether or not it really works we don't know for sure. It looks like it probably would work. It's actually safe to create a universe in your basement. It would not displace the universe around it even though it would grow tremendously. It would actually create its own space as it grows and in fact in a very short fraction of a second it would splice itself off completely from our Universe and evolve as an isolated closed universe growing to cosmic proportions without displacing any of the territory that we currently lay claim to.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml

[Spinzonner]

105. No, you can't have a Universe unless you promise to take care of it ...

[Strong Atheist]

80. From my perspective, this

sub part of the thread rapidly acquired a negative and combative tone that I frankly am at a complete loss to understand.

There seem to have been several teaching opportunities that were completely missed. I think that I can say without fear of contradiction that Carl Sagan would have handled things differently. I think that that he would have tried to explain his position in plain words without condescension; not only to help in understanding, but to win people over to his position.

In any case, since I have learned nothing (from the lack of actual facts presented here) that seems to advance my OP, and since the "arguments" presented here have failed to provide enough information to convince me to change my opinions, I am withdrawing from this part of the sub-thread, bloodied but unbowed! :patriot:

I bid you a good day :hi: ,


and hope that we meet again in some other post on friendlier terms!

:toast:

[tocqueville]

15. OK since Wikipedia explains it better than I do

"A gravitational singularity occurs when an astrophysical model, typically based on general relativity, predicts some type of pathological behavior of space-time, such as a point of infinite space-time curvature. The term is closely related to the mathematical notion of "singularity": a gravitational singularity occurs when the equations produce a mathematical singularity."

"The Big Bang cosmological model of the universe contains a gravitational singularity at the start of time (t=0). At the "Big Bang Singularity," the model predicts that the density of the universe and the curvature of space-time are paradoxically infinite."

in other words before "it started" mathematical and physical models show that the universe was infinetely dense and the curvature infinite (which is for physical reasons a paradox). Why it exploded or changed state, we don't know, because there are no ways of "measuring" it today.

Physics never say that the universe came out of "nothing". We cannot explain the something before the something, because the something before is fundamentally different from what we can understand today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

[Midwest_Doc]

3. The Bottom Line

Just because something cannot be explained, does not mean it was created by a god.

I am comfortable in not knowing all of the answers; perhaps someday I will. In the meantime, I will not abandon reason and look to an imaginary friend who will be the answer to all of my thus far unanswered questions.

[Spinzonner]

6. Not clear that the idea 'popped into existence' make any sense

You havent' defined what you mean by either existence or 'popped' Your words are tainted by a personal, time-space and non-quantum-mechanical parochial view of the nature of things.

It's not at all clear to be discussing 'things popping into existence' when it may be that existence itself is what is 'popping', as poor as that word is.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. from a different standpoint

"I was a hidden treasure who longed to be known"....this well known hadith is one of the basic tenents of Sufism, and explains, in part, the reason for existance. In my study of different mystical schools, I've come across the same concept, phrased a bit differently. Basically, there is the One in Completeness, and in this Completeness, there is no way for the One to experience. Hence the creation of duality, which is really an illusion. The dance between duality and Oneness continues, on and on.

[Strong Atheist]

11. This is why I do not

delve into some of the eastern religions, they seem to be fond of saying things like "there is the One ... the creation of duality, which is really an illusion." Black is white, night is day, and everything is an illusion, blah, blah, blah. I tend find all of this to be nonsense, literally. Sorry if that offends you, but I really have no patience for the way that some of these philosophies deliberately speak in riddles ...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. that's fine

for everyone has the right to follow their own path. Whereas this is a riddle to you, to me it is crystal clear. But I am sure that there are belief systems you have that would be a complete mystery to me. So I wish you well.

[Strong Atheist]

20. Thank you! nt.

[papau]

12. "challenged atheists to explain how the universe came about" - and the

answer is what?????

Do you like "there was once this "singularity" ", or do you prefer Sufism and "I was a hidden treasure who longed to be known"?

Now that singularity always existed and just went into action 14 billion years ago.

I suggest that "knowing" the answer - any answer - must begin with faith in something one can not prove. Science, by the definition of what it does and how it does it, will not, can not get you an answer. But you can have "faith" in science and use the word as equivalent to GOD.

To me the rational answer is "God" - but everyone has their own opinion and that is part of what free will is all about.

[Strong Atheist]

21. I am glad that you posted this.

Saying "God" begs the question, for God is an existing thing, no? So how did God come about? "God" adds nothing to explaining how things came about, and indeed adds an unnecessary extra (and I might add unexplained) step to the equation. I prefer not to add the extra step of "God", and just say that one of the two possibilities (Things always existed OR Things suddenly came about)is the case. BTW, I have no problem with having faith. As I explained to the other atheists in the Groups section, I take the entire universe (save myself, time, and space) on faith.

[papau]

25. God is an existing thing is the first "error" - God is - at least in the

religions I am aware of. And that is it. God is.

Existence is what he gave us.

The principle of parsimony is great - except it does not apply when it gets you nowhere.

I like the Greek approach you have "I take the entire universe (save myself, time, and space) on faith" - indeed the Greeks wondered if "myself, time, and space" were real!

The renaming of God - the giving of the power of God in Human life to another name - say science, or faith, or belief - is common, but it does not get you closer to an answer to the question "How do atheists view creation".

Indeed the only atheist explanations I have heard is to redefine atheism as agnosticism - or to say the question is not important - or to say, to whatever shape/definition of God that is proposed, that you can not prove "it", thereby exposing a fact that we all agree on and completing the circle of logic that started with we can never explain / prove how creation occurred, so how do you view creation.

There is no answer except by faith. Or do you like renaming God as singularities that wait a while and then pop into the Big Bang? As if Big Bang does not require faith for the pre-creation view?

[Strong Atheist]

27. I am saying for you

that God is an existing thing, for despite your evasions I do not thing that you want to say that God is not an existing thing, or that God = Nothing. Therefore,if God is an existing thing, it begs the question of HOW EXISTING things came to be by saying that GOD created them, for HOW did God as an existing thing come to be?

Worse, it combines the worst of both my A and B postulates of existence by saying that something (God) ALWAYS existed AND created things out of nothing by some MAGICAL unexplained way. This is the worst of both worlds (AND begs the question), so I will stick with either things (without god and magical creation from nothing) always existed, or things magical came from nothing on THEIR OWN, again without the necessity of a God that I do not see in this universe.

[papau]

30. was, is, and always shall be - "existing" is not the word I would choose

If you have faith that things "magical came from nothing on THEIR OWN, again without the necessity of a God", you have indeed found your religion.

And you are a true to the definition atheist!

congratulations :toast:

:-)

[Strong Atheist]

34. There are only two

real possibilities. Either some thing(s) always were, or something(s) suddenly came to be (magically? HOW? no one can say, hence magical). AS I have said I take 99% of things on faith, because I KNOW that I can not prove that you, or the universe, or physical object really exist. My senses may be deceiving me. It could be a Matrix scenario. See my "Hello" thread in the atheist group.

As for your post, I did not fail to notice that you refuse to acknowledge the inconsistencies in your thinking over HOW THINGS came to exist, and GOD being an EXISTING THING:D .

I BELIEVE that either things have ALWAYS existed, or they (yes, magically) came into existence on their own, with no help from Gods (which only add an extra level of magic, by waving their magic wand and causing things to come into existence). Occam's Razor dictates that one of my two explanations is preferable to your explanation, which involves extra steps (God) and extra magic (God's magical powers). I prefer to think that things just popped in ON THEIR OWN, or were always there ON THEIR OWN, depending on my mood. I really don't LIKE either answer, as I explained, but your non-answer is taking the worst of both (A THING - GOD - always existed(possibility "A" in my OP) (HOW, you beg the question) AND it created more things out of nothing (possibility "B" in my OP). I will stick with ONE of those two bad choice, instead of taking both as you do.

[papau]

41. Consistent ? God must not only be in the image of man, but must use

logic exactly as a human would?

GOD being an EXISTING THING (that must have been brought into existence?) is today's mantra - and that is OK.

And you will stick with ONE of those two bad choice, instead of taking both as I do - and that is OK.

What ever floats your boat!

Have a great day!

:-)

[Strong Atheist]

49. I have thought that I

explained my position to you, but I am willing to start over. I AM willing to explain HOW (but not WHY, if there even is a WHY) I think that things have come to be, but you are going to have to work with me, ok?

First, rather than limiting myself to the universe, I am asking how ALL things have come to be. I think that that is reasonable for two reasons: first, I think that most people MEAN to include all things when they they talk about THE UNIVERSE, and second I think that most people are not just interested in how this car, or that tree came to be, but in how EVERYTHING came to be.

All arguments need premises, and I would like to have one of the premises be that God is an existing thing, which I am ASSUMING (and we all know what that does to me) that you hold as a belief, HOWEVER, before our conversation on existence can proceed ANY FURTHER, I NEED for you to confirm this as a fact. I do not think that that is asking too much; just confirm as a theist that God is an existing thing yes or no, true or false, no complicated waffling answers. If you can not (or are not willing to) do that, I do not see how this conversation can proceed.

[papau]

56. You claim the answer in your question- that God did not exist and then did

exist is not the starting point that then proves the end point - at least under my rules of logic.

All that we have is God Exists, which as a theist I confirm - followed by your assertion that you need a start date for God's existence, in the same way that you have a start date for creation in a big bang 14 billion years ago.

I reject your assertion.

So I guess we can not go any further!

and that is OK! Indeed nothing wrong with that!

:toast:

:-)

[Strong Atheist]

58. So God exists.

Then God is an existing thing. The whole point of this discussion, from my perspective, is to determine how existing things came to exist. So how did God come to exist?

[papau]

60. It is the nature of God to be, was, and always will be. The "how did

God come to exist" is not a logical question - at least it is not logical to the theist.

[Strong Atheist]

62. Ah. Not logical to the theist. And here is

where we come to the crux of our differences on existence. You do not recognize the question "Where does God come from?" as being logical, whereas I see it as an extension of the "How do things exist?" question. Further, in my view God adds an unnecessary complication to that second question, for I could just paraphrase you answer and say that THINGS (everything else in the universe) "always were and always will be" (your words), leaving God out as an unnecessary "extra step". If you can not answer my "illogical" question, that is o.k. We have reached our impasse. I am going home for the day, and will not be back again till tomorrow! Good talking to you, but I think we are stuck! :hi:

[papau]

65. Have a great evening - I agree we can rename God as "things" that

were, are, and always will be.

But do we really make "God" unnecessary by doing so? Do we not just say that your "things", whatever the attributes you do or do not assign them, are a variation on my "God" - indeed by focusing on attributes ("things") do we really avoid the God question?

[Strong Atheist]

81. I am sorry that I was not clear in my

explanation. I was not renaming God. I was using your argument to say that "things" have always been around, just like you say for God. This means that (to me) God is not a necessary part of the equation. However, I am quite willing to admit that we have reached an impasse, and will agree with you to respectfully disagree!

Cheers!:toast:

[Zebedeo]

106. Exactly.

Asking when did God come into being is like asking where is the beginning of a circle. There is no beginning and no end to God. The very nature of him is that he is everpresent.

[trotsky]

17. Well, the first thing to realize is that "God did it" isn't an answer.

When theists challenge atheists to explain how the universe came into existence, it's a bogus challenge. They don't know the answer either, they just postulate that their invisible friend did it. At least with current scientific theories there's physical evidence and mathematical equations that support them.

Anyway, Spinzonner has the best take on it upthread. If this universe originated from a singularity (and there's considerable evidence that it did), then our whole system of existence - space, laws of physics, even time itself - are wholly dependent on what came out of that singularity. It makes no sense to speak of what came "before" the singularity, since time as we know it "started" at that point. Stephen Hawking made a great comparison - trying to ask what happened "before" our universe is akin to walking North from the North Pole.

[tocqueville]

18. you can say that "God dit it" as an answer

but it's a matter of belief and not of science. You can say that God did all singularities before the latest one (some theories say that the universe can go from big bangs to big crunches and so on), but it's impossible to prove. It's a question of faith.

The problem is when theists say you cannot understand it, so "God did it". Maybe yes, maybe not. It's not a PROOF, only another "theory".

That's why the flying spaghetti monster is as a valid "explanation" as Allah or God etc....

[papau]

29. "theists say you cannot understand it, so "God did it" is not what this

theist says.

And renaming God the "flying spaghetti monster" may amuse you, but it does nothing to answer the creation problem.

As you said, it is impossible to prove - it is by faith. But that does not mean that belief in God is not a rational response, a response based on logic. Human experience is the only thing we have going - and many folks find that human experience leads them to a belief in God.

It is not more logical to believe in no God than to believe in God.

Logic comes from human experience - and to deny belief in God as not logical is to deny human experience, and that is not logical.

[tocqueville]

69. very strange definition of logic

let me take some examples of your "logic"

Thunderstorm and lightning :

1) old Scandinavians said Thor is angry and throwing around his hammer
2) another guy in another place of the world says it's because of the giant farts and flames from a dragon somewhere
3) Benjamin Franklin sends up a kite and says : it has to do with electricity.

What have the two first cases to do with logic ? nothing, they are just bad explanations. You cannot say that the two first responses are "rational", more than lacking other explanations you could say that there is "something" doing it. It could be ANYTHING.

It doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, it's only a hypothesis.

Human experience and logic are two different things. Experience is an accumulation of observations. Million of years of observation of natural phenomena and human behaviour have led some thinkers 300 years ago to approach the understanding of their environment in other ways than the standard... "there is a God". Science doesn't deny the existence of God, it only deals with what human can observe an understand. That's why the theory of evolution is a much more LOGIC explanation than saying that the world was created 6000 years ago by a bearded guy sitting on cloud.

Then you can always say that there is a God behind all this, creation, evolution etc... it has nothing to do with logic. It's a belief and respectable as such. But still a belief.

read about cargo cults
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

and it will give you a good example of human experience and "logic"

btw I am not an atheist.

[papau]

75. I fall back on our friends the Greeks and the discussion of what we can be

sure is real. In any case I agree that it all boils down to belief.

But logic can lead to bad explanations - so there must be "belief" whenever one says something is true - even if you came to that conclusion through logic. Only when we deal with math are we free of the need for "belief", IMHO.

But there is "life experience" - indeed there is not much other than life experience to guide our logic.

And my saying that my "logic" leads me to God is no more than my saying that my life experiences lead me to God.

No matter how foolproof an argument seems to be, there will always be those who do not believe. When St. Thomas Aquinas put down his 5 logical reasons to believe in God, or Time Mag. listed out its 41 reasons a few years back, we all took a shot at the quality of the logic :-) But judging the quality of the logic goes back to opinion - opinion that was at least partially formed based on life experiences. Aquinas's 5th "proof" is just life experience that showed him that non-intelligent things always act toward an end that requires direction by an intelligent being. An arrow will not achieve its purpose (that of reaching its mark) unless directed to do so by an archer. Humans are the intelligent beings that direct the small objects of our world, but there must be a greater intelligence that directs the larger bodies of the universe - that gave forth the laws of science at the time of the big bang. Indeed we say that the laws of science do not exist before the big bang. So God not only created everything, he set up the system by which everything works, else why do these laws of science exist? The Garden Allegory best demonstrates this proof. If in a jungle there is a patch of land resembling a garden that is cultivated, planted, and weeded, then there must be a gardener. There is a natural order which humans do not create. Therefore these laws must imply a lawmaker. This lawmaker can be no other then God himself.

The problem of evil is explained by Augustine as evil being nothing - all things come from God, God is good, so all things that come from Him are good, so the absence of good means evil is ultimately a form of nothing. Maimonidies argues that evil must be because it is part of human nature if we are to have senses one can not live a life free from pain if there is no pain(or evil). And for those that believe God acts in our life moment by moment, the logic is that God gives us free will, will not interfere with it, and if we as humans chose to do evil, then we will be justly punished, and if we chose to do what our nature intended us to, which is good, then we will be rewarded, and indeed that is how one earns heaven.

But why do bad things happen to good people? With free will God is not all-powerful, but is good, and does not cause the suffering. With free will the ordering of the universe is not complete: Some things are just circumstantial, and there is no point in looking for a reason for them. Some suffering is caused by the workings of natural law without moral judgment involved--natural law is blind, and God does not interfere with it. Suffering that is caused by the actions of evil people results again from free will allowing us to be human - and if we could not do evil, we would be less human. After our initial suffering we can make it worse by blaming ourselves, blaming those around us trying to help, or by blaming God. Free will also means God didn't cause our problems and can't fix them, and only give us the strength of character that we need to handle our misfortunes, if we are willing to accept it. We like Job must forgive God for not making a better world, reach out to the people around us, and go on living despite it all."

But we agree - it all comes down to belief. And I believe that my logic that leads me to believe in God is as good or better than the logic of those whose logic leads them to not believe in God.

Whatever floats our boats -eh?

note to the plagiarist checkers - all the above is plagiarized - meaning not original to me.

[tocqueville]

86. Intelligent design ?

"Aquinas's 5th "proof" is just life experience that showed him that non-intelligent things always act toward an end that requires direction by an intelligent being."

the arrow comparison is a sophism, specially when related to the non- intelligent rest of the planet. You can explain the "purposes" of plants, animals and continental drift by a serie of chemical and physical laws and not by a direction from God. Evolution acts at random... and there we are...

OK, you can say that it was God purpose from the beginning even if he doesn't have a "hand" on it right now. I cannot prove the contrary. If it is so I can complain that this planet is too violent, humid and drafty. But that's about all.

I don't disagree with you that logic in itself can come to the conclusion that there is a God. I merely stated that I don't see the relation with "human experience".

[papau]

96. Aquinas's 5th "proof" is indeed "Intelligent design" - but I was using it

only to illustrate the concept of life experience informing one of what is logical.

The Greeks spent a few hundred years on this topic of what is real and what makes it real.

As you note, I can say that it was God purpose from the beginning even if he doesn't have a "hand" on it right now, and you cannot prove the contrary. And I do say that it was God purpose from the beginning.

And indeed with the Free Will idea, that seems to be the extent of God's daily control of our lives outside of miracles. And indeed it fits, in my opinion, with my understanding of why good people get hurt.

Now other theists have many variations from the above, and some are not at all like my own. But that is were I am.

:toast:

:-)

[tocqueville]

98. cheers

:toast:

[Strong Atheist]

23. "God did it" begs the question,

because God is an existing thing, at least to theists, so where did God come from (this just adds an unnecessary step)?. Saying that a singularity did it ALSO begs the question, for a singularity is an existing thing, at least to a physicist, so where did the singularity come from?

Was God/Singularity always there, did it suddenly come into existence?

[trotsky]

24. "Where did the singularity come from?" is a meaningless question.

Just like, "When standing at the North Pole, which way is north?"

We will probably only ever know things that have happened or will happen under our current laws of physics and space-time. A singularity is by scientific definition outside those. Even postulating the question of where the singularity "came from" presupposes the existence of a cause & effect relationship, which for all we know may only be valid WITHIN this universe.

We're here, we live in a beautiful and vast cosmos, and that's all that really matters.

[Strong Atheist]

28. No, it is not a meaningless question;

it goes to the heart of the original post, HOW and WHY do things exist. This poster said that that it came from a singularity (SO THERE!). That begs the question; where did the singularity (an existing thing with mass) COME FROM (HOW and WHY).

[Spinzonner]

90. It is a meaningless question

because the concept of 'come from' is a statement of causality which doesn't cross the singularity because it involves a notion of time which also doesn't cross the singularity. Those concepts and the laws associated with them. And the assertion that the singularity has mass is also meaningless because mass only exists once the universe has emerged from the singularity.

And your notion of the singularity being an 'existing' thing may be tainted by a post-emergence bias about existence. In fact, we don't know about what a singularity is and by definition would be unable to probe it because it is outside of the universe and its laws. At best we can know, to some degree, what it isn't.

And 'why', of course, is a metaphysical issue, not a scientific one.

[papau]

42. Singularity is 14 billion years old today- per science! - God is forever.

At least that is my belief.

[papau]

26. To reject the question of creation is indeed one of Hawking's responses.

But with "information coming out of a black hole" he is back at trying to answer while not using the word God.

[trotsky]

31. Well yeah, because "God" isn't an answer.

"God" just adds another layer of questions.

[papau]

32. Human experience defines logic - and God is the logical answer -

at least in my humble opinion.

:toast:

But I respect your belief that God is not the answer because we will find a solution to creation without a God concept if we just think hard enough, so God just adds "another layer of questions".


In the world of opinion, everyone has one, eh?

:toast:

:-)

[Strong Atheist]

35. "God" adds

a redundant layer of unexplainable phenomena, without adding ANY clarity to the existence issue.

[papau]

39. True only if you see them as two separate issues!

time for a walk -

Thanks for the conversation!

:toast:

:-)

[trotsky]

46. Clarification

Since you insist on reframing the question to suit your own opinion.

This isn't about "find(ing) a solution to creation without a God", this is simply about finding a solution. If we never do, then hey, we never do. But that doesn't mean that a god is as good a guess as anything else, because all that a god does is introduce more questions, like where did the god come from, what did it do for eternity before it decided to create the universe, yada yada yada.

[papau]

57. nope - the concept of God - the one that produces more questions, is

not my concept of God.

Indeed the yada, yada, yada is a product of circular thinking - "simply not finding a solution" is an assertion that there is no God - and around the circle we go.

[trotsky]

64. Alright, maybe *you* don't have more questions,

but just about everybody else on the planet might.

Where did your god come from?

If your god has always existed, why couldn't the universe have always existed?

Please explain.

[papau]

66. Science says the Universe started 14 billion years ago - and who am I to

disagree!

:-)

[trotsky]

67. Science is strong BECAUSE of disagreement.

Science welcomes disagreement. Only by challenging current ideas do we refine and improve our knowledge. That's why "goddidit" is such a horrible "answer" - it doesn't add anything, tell us anything, or bring us any closer to understanding anything.

You want to disagree with current Big Bang cosmology? Go right ahead! If you feel like it, write up a paper stating your theory. Cite evidence you've found, or mathematics you've derived, that supports it. You could very well overturn the big bang theory, if your theory fits the data better. That's how science works.

[papau]

70. I need more emotion icons in my message - we of course agree on

how science works.

My point - not well made apparently - was big bang has a start date.

The concept of God does not - "was, is, and ever shall be"

[trotsky]

84. And that's why "God" isn't an explanation.

You'll get this yet.

[papau]

88. :-) :-) :-) May we both be happy in our belief system! :-) :-) :-)

:-)

[trotsky]

91. And may you derive the pleasure you so desire

by continuing to label atheism a "belief system."

No matter how inaccurate or insulting it may be.

[papau]

92. Not meant to be insulting in any way-But Belief system is in my vocabulary

and is the ONLY correct word to use - so I will continue to use it.

But I am not in any way made happier if you feel the phrase is an insult.

I do not understand why it would be an insult - and indeed see the claim it is an insult as a power move to control the terms of the debate.

But I in no way derive pleasure from hurting anyone -

and if you truly feel insulted, I am sorry you feel that way.

[trotsky]

93. It is the correct word in your belief system.

We agreed on this yet you continue to harp on the point, load up with lots of smilies, and generally act disrespectfully.

Apparently nothing has changed. I guess if Jesus is proud of you that's all that matters.

[papau]

94. true n/t

n/t

[heidler1]

109. You seem to dance right over the problem of time 6000 years versus

14 billion years with no connection of this god of yours to any specific religion. It seems to me that connecting your god to christian beliefs is a big stretch. What backs up the idea that this very old god cares about good and evil as christians claim? In the old testament Abraham was gods favorite and sanctioned his passing his beautiful wife off as his sister so that he could get rich.

[unpossibles]

33. my 2 cents

First off, I agree that if one believes in a God who is the creator of all things, then one should want to know who/what created God. It's a similar argument to the singularity question, and equally unknowable - thus not an answer and ironically similar to the "silly" paradox found in eastern philosophies of everything=nothing.

I posit this: that just because we do not understand something does not make it unknowable. We did not understand many things throughout history that upon further study, came to be more understood.

And a further question: what if the singularity of our universe is the reaction of another universe? This does not answer the original question either, as you can say it is the same as the God answer: what created that universe?

I think the problem is looking at it linearly. What if the universe is a molecule or an atom or a subatomic particle and if each of our particles are also universes? What if time and space are not shaped the way we see them, in a straight line? What if space/time is a closed loop or a wave? What if as you went down into each level of particle and each universe you repeated yourself?

Who the hell knows. I find it an interesting topic, but I don't think we can know the answer, at least not yet.

Although I am agnostic tending toward atheist, I do find some interesting things in Eastern religions/philosophies, especially the idea that as members of a system, the entire system is also contained in each of us.

Anyway.... sorry if I derailed a bit.

[Strong Atheist]

36. I like your post. We agree a lot.

I have to go for the day:( . See you tomorrow A.M.

[unpossibles]

38. thanks!

I am enjoying these threads.

Even though I am a heathen non-believer, I find religion/philosophy/mythology vastly interesting and enjoy a good discussion.

[Beetwasher]

37. Existence Is

There can never be nothing.

Actually, for me, I can't logically conceive of there ever being nothing. I think it's more logical for there to be SOMETHING, whether it's the universe that is now, or something else, but the concept of absolutely nothing is illogical to me.

That being said, space and time are NOT separate things, they are intrinsically linked and may in fact be the ONE thing; space-time. Even further on this, there are theories (good one's in my opinion and maybe this could be separate thread) that time-space (as we know it and as we use it) doesn't really exist and is only a byproduct of consciousness observing change. I read a very good book on this called "The End of Time" by Julian Barbour. Fascinating and interesting read, I highly recommend it.

Another Philosophy major here! :thumbsup:

[Strong Atheist]

54. Ok. I will try to get around

to the book sometime in my (non-existent) free time. We are going to have to disagree about what makes sense vis-a-vie existence and non-existence, though!

[wtbymark]

40. well, i will continue - or interject

for an atheist phi student you didn't even put forth the argument of infinity and god- you get an 'F' for that one.
what happened before it happened? Logically, the same thing. Logic is a universal because what we label as logical is a cohearent, repeatable system. What happened before this epoc, another epoc.

Singularity/ big bang, unfolding of existance all say the same thing; and if an epoc had just ceased and another one born that would be the smallest unit/moment in/of time; and pretty moot.
Time: in and of itself is a biproduct of reality
(come on phi buffs- got me labeled yet?)

[papau]

43. "Logical is a cohearent, repeatable system" - and we are back to science?

There can be no logic that does not follow the scientific method?

The Greek worry about life experiences being real - is not a worry?

Interesting.

[wtbymark]

45. "There can be no logic that does not follow the scientific method?"

this is not what i said, in fact I'm stating:
There can be no science that does not follow logic

science was born from philopsophy

[papau]

47. but is logic limited to the rules in science? Science must follow logic -

but I fear one might be equating/treating all non-science as not logical since cohearent, repeatable are code words for the scientific method.

Logical is a cohearent, repeatable system" - ?

A cohearent system is in the eye of the beholder. IMHO.

And repeatable - applying "logic" to similiar sets of experience may not get two different folks to the same point of view toward that set of experiences. Is one of those folk not using logic - or not using logic correctly? Is there any way to tell when not dealing with the scientific method?

If logical is cause and effect what do we make of QM's action at a distance - no known cause can be observed - but we "know" we have "entanglement"?

QM "works" to give us answers, so it must be logical?

[wtbymark]

48. Logic has established rules of it's own

out of logic, the scientific method was born. Science adhears to its rules because of logic. There can be more than one logical outcome to a problem. And in turn, people misuse logic constantly.

All of the disciplines of philosophy adhear to the rules of logic
My favorite saying "Science seeks to prove what philosophy has already proven"

In most philosophers opinions, science is about 100 years behind what phi guys are doing. Very rarely do they even come close to each other (time wise)one exception: Einstein and Whitehead

All of your Quantum theories are so 1920's, everything that you QM guys are wrangling your heads over was logically proven over 80 years ago. You just feel the need to physically prove it, in other words you need to measure it - which you will never be able to. The discussion is at the point now, to where science has run into a brick wall because there's no way to measure/quantify something that you logically know to be there (I'm not talking faith or belief, QM and QP guys know what I'm saying)but is/isn't physically there. You can measure the effects of it (which you have) but you can't measure IT because it is/isn't there.

[papau]

52. The mathematical rules of logic, and the verbal versions of the rules

are indeed well known.

I like your "Science seeks to prove what philosophy has already proved" but I wonder about the word "proved"

Einstein I enjoy, and but Whitehead is heavy reading! Guess that is why I did not go heavy into Phi.

In Science the lack of ability to physically measure means one lacks the ability to say one has scientific evidence.

To logically "know" - like the words "proven" and "proved" above - is a concept that is open to a great deal of discussion - IMHO.

In QM the word conjecture is a word some avoid - but it fits nicely to all scientific work - and even fits when you claim to know something that is not possible to measure/quantify. Conjecture proven logically is indeed possible, but in science it just does not compute! :-) Indeed presenting the bad proof as if it proved something logically was a fun game when I was in school!

Something that is/isn't physically there is indeed, in my opinion, more in Philosophy/Religion than in science - but we love our QM!

[papau]

61. I forgot to say I agree with your time is a biproduct of realty comment

But we have that darn starting date for the Universe - bummer!

:-)

[Strong Atheist]

55. Much as I hate to interrupt you and papau,

I must say that I am must be slow today. I have no idea what your original post to this thread means ...

[papau]

59. :-) - that works for me as a definition of atheist - indeed the talking

past one another seems the only result, as what is obvious is not obvious, depending on the mindset.

[Strong Atheist]

63. Agreed!

:)

[Odin2005]

50. There was no "begining"

I read about an intresting hypothesis that says our Universe is a 3-D membrane (a 3-brane in physics-speak) floating in a greater higher-demensional cosmos that is eternal. according to this hypothesis, every few trillion years, our 3-brane runs into another 3-brain, when the branes hit, they bounce off each other and has a Big Bang event. The trillions of years of expansion before the last big bag eliminates the need to envoke inflation.

[papau]

53. last years attempts to find "brane" evidence all failed - but I like the

one off idea of the Greek girl that first there was this "field" and interactions produce creation and reality.

But the idea that all is in 2 dimensions and higher dimensions do not exist - they are just holograph complications - is my current favorite!

:-)

[wtbymark]

68. I'm jumping back in

somehow I knew you heard of Whitehead, papau, and to say it's thick reading is an understatement. I took a year to exclusively study Whitehead and there are pages that no human being has been able to grasp. But we all have a notion of it. His grand opus "Process and Reality" has become an entire discipline within philosophy. This guy got it right, bulletproof in both ways - theistic and non-theistic, his cosmology is errorless. He left the god question as more of a catalyst to creating the epocs (epoc(Whiteheadian): The cycle of big bang, big crunch, over and over again)

Whitehead on Time: Actual entities of Reality make the physicality of the universe, an infintesimle unit that is/isn't there. An infinite number comprise the nucleus of an atom but what is unique here is that each entity of reality has the 'feeling of appetition'. Mentality is half its base, a number of them 'feel' themselves as a nucleus, conversly, an infinite number of entities span between the nucleus and the electron orbiting around the nucleus. These entities feel the 'concrescents' of the electron to the nucleus = gravity = mental appetition. Each one of these entities of reality becomes and parishes instantly. The becoming and perishing of actual entities of reality creates time. So as you sat and thought about your chair for an instant, the 'stuff' that makes that chair became and died an infinite number of times creating the time it took you to think about the chair. LMAO


Your head may now explode lol

[papau]

71. My friend at the U of MD tried to do QM using Whitehead - and

actually came up with an innovative design that somehow made use of the blinking in and out of existence to develope power.

And he got funding from a Japanese utility to build a prototype!

And last I heard he now considers it a dead end (but I have not spoken to him in 10 years)

I was happy with big bang, big crunch, over and over again but we seem to have a problem getting a big crunch.

In any case the current big bang, with or without big crunch, fits the Bible - I love noting that fact :-)

I just hope neither your head or mine now explodes!

Night! (old folks go to bed before 10 unless the meds have not kicked in - and tonight is a good night!)

:toast:

:-)

[Zebedeo]

107. Amazing, isn't it?

"In any case the current big bang, with or without big crunch, fits the Bible - I love noting that fact."

Amazing that a group of nomadic goatherds thousands of years ago in the Middle East just happened to get so lucky that the "creation mythology" they invented just happened to be the Truth.

[Silverhair]

83. I read that in last month's Scientific American.

Now that one was really hard to wrap my brain around. I finally sort of gave up.

[Darranar]

72. A few thoughts.

At a certain point the current state of things, with the current quantity of "stuff," the current scientific "rules," and the current spaciotemporal "playing field" came into being.

How this came about is a question beyond human reasoning, because human reasoning is grounded in a world where these things do indeed exist, and our cognition makes certain assumptions for us which cannot be avoided. Your "sense of cause and effect" and "conservation laws" only apply (as far as we know) to the universe after this point, and therefore cannot explain how that point came to be.

Hyperbolic denial is simply impossible with a human mind.

Furthermore we may be imposing our view of the universe upon the universe, substituting that which is real for practical approximations of that which is real, approximations that, while they work for our purposes, fail to adequately explain all phenomena and perhaps even distort our perception of such phenomena. Relativity flatly contradicts our intuitive assumptions about time and space. It is held to only because it is at the current point the best conclusion of the intuitive assumptions science makes, which are not necessarily any more viable.

Rationalism is really only "rationalism" within the bounds of a large number of postulates automatically assumed, some of which have been explicitly identified (the logical system, for instance) but a great deal of which are probably so ingrained that we cannot even conceive of them not being true, and thus fail to recognize them as assumptions.

[Strong Atheist]

82. While I may not agree with everything

that you have said (or, I admit, even UNDERSTAND everything that you have said), I appreciate your tone, and the attempt to make your thoughts understandable, as opposed to how some might chose to not try to explain to those they might consider less knowledgeable ...:toast:

[Spinzonner]

85. With all due respect

you needed to suspend your assertion and assumption of so-called 'intuitive' and obvious existence and definitions of things before relativity and quantum mechanics can enlighten you about the nature of reality as currently viewed by science.

You are entitled to your metaphysical views and definitions of things and your limited, parochial views of physical reality, but they do not necessarily conform to the nature of the universe on the smallest and largest scales and in the extremes of time and space.

This is not a hostile perspective or attitude as you have implied elsewhere, it's just one that you need to be educated to, or at least open to, the more complex nature of reality as seen by contemporary science.

[Strong Atheist]

87. See post # 80 nt.

[Spinzonner]

89. Saw it

and I took your above message as an indirect reference to it.

I'm no Carl Sagan but even if I was it takes a student to make a teacher effective. You were simply unwilling to give up the 'intuitive' notions you have about existance and space and time which are not consistent with the concepts of contemporary cosmology.

To understand scientific theories and truths, you have to be willing to at least suspend the adherence to the definitions and assumptions that are in definitional contradiction to them. That does not obligate you to beleive or otherwise accept them but you need to enter a new frame of reference to deal with them, not insist that yours is the correct and by implication the only one because it is 'intuitive'.

I don't think you will be able to understand the issues and alternate views of reality until you do because they will be entirely foreign and an obstruction to logical thinking about them. (Note I do not equate logic with truth, I merely require that you accept certain other postulates outside a more parochial frame of reference about the universe and reason consistently with them.)

[Silverhair]

74. Many of these responses are making an error regarding "before".

Time is part of the physical universe. Outside of our universe, it has no meaning at all. Even the brane theory that I mentioned earlier, has a problem with pre-time.

So if you accept a God who created the Universe, then it would have to exist both inside and outside of time. Outside of time would be incomprehensible by humans.

[papau]

76. Indeed - that God has no time dimension is a given. :-)

:-)

[Darranar]

77. Just because time is part of our physical universe

does not mean that time is solely part of our physical universe.

"Time" as we think of it is really a psychological perception of one dimension of spacetime, and that psychological perception could theoretically apply without the dimension.

[Spinzonner]

79. You appear to be playing word games

You postulate something you call 'time' that exists outside the universe while the only time that we scientifically recognize and understand (to some degree) is the one that exists within the context of the universe we exist in and with respect to it's natural laws.

And we won't even go into the nonsequiter of talking about psychological perceptions and the organisms that exhibit them when those exist only within that universe.

[Darranar]

97. No, I am not.

Yes, I am aware that the only scientifically recognized time is the time within our own universe. That is clear.

A time dimension could nevertheless exist elsewhere as well, however, with the same rules that apply here.

But what really matters isn't the rules that apply, or even the existence of the dimension, but the psychological perception of time conscious beings have. We cannot know whether or not God, or any other beings (say, the souls of dead humans) outside of this universe, have this psychological perception, and all I am arguing is that it is unclear that they do not.

You have absolutely no way of knowing that organisms with our psychological perception of time exist solely within our universe. All of your knowledge is grounded in this one.

[Strong Atheist]

95. Read post #60 and #90.

Am I the only one who sees the irony?

:rofl:

[papau]

99. Yes - you are the "only one" missing the logic of the singularity (but I

would guess you do not have a math or physics undergrad or grad degree - so you do not get a "bad" grade :-) ) -and who does not see that the nature of God to "be, was, and always will be", compared to time beginning at the singularity, means that the demand for who created God is a meaningless question.

Only by assuming God was created do you get the problem of who created God.

But since Time is only 14 billion years old, what started time is not a meaningless question.

[Strong Atheist]

102. Peace, papau.

This was not aimed at you. You and I have already come to a friendly agreement to disagree. :toast: . I found it ironic that on one side it is being said that "how did god come to exist is not a logical question" and AT THE SAME TIME, on the other side it is being said that where a singularity came from is a "meaningless question"! It struck a me as very much the same reasoning! (BOOMING VOICE) DO NOT QUESTION BEYOND THIS POINT! Move along folks, nothing to see here!

It just struck my funny bone that, is all. Sometimes I have a quirky sense of humor.

As far as understanding singularities, well, there is a lot of "you do not know what you are talking about", which may be true, but there are no explanations offered, just superior attitudes expressed with pejorative words such as "quaint", and hints that the speaker knows more, without any actual FACTS. Then there are the demands to define common sense things (no definition provided by the demander, of course), while at the same time showing no willingness to commit to an easy answer (EITHER a singularity = something, or it = Nothing! Sheesh, whats so hard about that to answer? I think the answer is obvious ...) :evilgrin:

[Darranar]

101. The singularity argument and the God one are essentially different.

The God one is just a bad argument. Adding in the "God" element does not solve the problem, it just extends the causation to another point. The issue must still be resolved one way or another - either God came originated ex nihilo, or He (or at least His actions in our universe) is part of an infinite stream of causes and effects (which I will grant may simply be Him causing Himself to continue existing).

The singularity argument arises from a serious scientific perspective, one that can be easily adopted into philosophy.

Take the statement that "effects have causes." The only place for you to have confirmed and entrenched this theory is within the current post-singularity universe. The theory, like logic, like mathematics, like gravity, seems to hold universally within that post-singularity universe, but we have no means of knowing whether the rule originated with the Big Bang (or some other point of creation) or whether it has always been true. Since we have no idea whether or not the laws we think by have the slightest thing to do with pre-Big Bang phenomena, asking "what came before" is an exercise that goes nowhere. If the current "rules," among them the conservation of mass and energy and cause and effect, originated with the Big Bang, they are not applicable to what came before and not capable of analyzing possible answers.

[Strong Atheist]

103. Now THIS

is an explanation! THANK you. But see also post #102 for why I found these two statements ironic ...

[papau]

104. Well said :-) But again "God came originated ex nihilo" is not the

theist concept - and that statement, like "infinite stream of causes and effects," presupposes the answer by recasting the question of creation into a "logical problem" of who created the creator.

As to "effects have causes" I have some QM friends that would both agree and disagree with that statement - and then modify it - but that is the world of QM!

:-)

[Zebedeo]

108. May I respectfully suggest

that you are simply renaming God as "singularity"? God created space, time, and the laws of physics. They did not just spring into existence spontaneously. Or if you argue that they did, please explain by what method known to science this could have occurred without the involvement of God.

Truly, there is no materialist explanation for the existence of the universe, and to postulate a
"singularity" in lieu of God seems to me to be illogical.

However, that is JMHO, and you are every bit as entitled to hold your own opinion. That, as a poster noted above, is the nature of free will.

[trotsky]

110. Careful, now.

That can just as easily be thrown back at you.

Prove that it HAD to be a god that created the universe. (Include any relevant physical evidence or mathematics, please.)

[Brentos]

111. You can't

I can't prove that God created the universe, just as others cannot prove how the universe began, they can thoerize, postulate, equate, but not prove. I can discuss why I believe God created the universe, or the religous implications of that, and you can discuss what evidence leads to your understanding of the pysical and mathematical makeup of the universe and its origins and the implications it has on us, and those would be interesting discussions. I personally believe God created the universe using the physical laws He created, hence I believe in evolution, big bang (or something like that), etc.

[trotsky]

112. I'm not asking you to prove that he did,

I'm asking you to prove that there is no other alternative.

Slightly different challenge. Kind of along the lines of Sherlock Holmes - when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

[Brentos]

113. True

And to that challenge, neither of us can win. It is not impossible that God created the universe, or a giant spaghetti-monster, if you will, nor is it impossible that we are the results of random flukes with no design/intent/will.

As to probability, the scientist will always win the debate, as science is mathematically based, and can be calculated with probability (even though much of what we know today about science will possibly be likely be proven wrong within 100 years and we'll have a different set of scientific standards). Belief cannot. Therefore, I will concede to you that I can not in any probability show you that God created the universe beyond my beliefs, traditions, and text. Whereas, you can show with some degree of probability that the universe was created in one way or another. I would argue that it was God who decided what way or the other and did it, but cannot win a debate about it.

[heidler1]

114. Your view of the subject is rational to me. In spite of the fact that I

I see no evidence of any God being involved. With this in mind does Intelligent Design belong in Science class?

[Brentos]

115. Ohhh, bloody heck, no!

With this in mind does Intelligent Design belong in Science class?

Blah, no! Intelligent design is NOT science! Science and religion should remain completely separate. Later, when each is understood, we can try to combine the two in some new sort of philosophy or religious-science class that is optional at the college level, maybe. But I want my children (when I have them) to be taught about evolution, quantum physics, geology, the Big Bang, etc., in science class, and I'll teach them religion at home and at church, and/or they can take comparative religion courses at college.

I believe God is the one who set up the rules of nature and can control it, but it sure isn't science by any definition of the word (or Word). I wish ID people would understand this concept, that the definition of science excludes religion...by definition!

BTW: I love Stephen J. Gould for my evolution-y lessons!

[hunter]

116. Stuff pops in and out of existence all of the time.

This universe is maybe just a rodent of unusual size. But for our own imaginations we have no tools for seeing past the edge of the universe.

Leibniz (the Calculus guy) believed that every particle was a reflection of the greater universe. If you look at it from the other side of the equation, the universe is the reflection of every particle. Yes, that would be those same silly particles that pop in and out of existence.



Mixing physics and philosophy can be quite mad.

Leibniz was a heretic, of course, hiding God in the interval like that.

[Brentos]

117. My brain hurts! :-)

Leibniz (the Calculus guy) believed that every particle was a reflection of the greater universe. If you look at it from the other side of the equation, the universe is the reflection of every particle. Yes, that would be those same silly particles that pop in and out of existence.

Wow! What a nutter! :-) I can't even conceive of the idea of the possibility of the probability of this, my brain is waaaaaay too small for that idea! :-)

[heidler1]

118. Long ago I read that atomic particles are possibly whole new worlds and

that our world might be atomic, sort of, in a very large universe that we can not see because of the spaces between particles that are part of it. This too could be made of some kind of relatively huge particles, on infinitum.

Even if this were true it really makes no difference as to what we can do about it and it does, like godly creation, complicate the possible big bang or what ever made it go in the first place.

I do appreciate the original posters attempt to keep this discussion on a layman's level regarding words used. My Father came from Germany about 115 years ago. He told me that after learning 450 words of English he could talk to anybody about anything.