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Church of Virus BBS   General   Philosophy & Religion   Atheistic Faith? « previous next » Pages: 1 [2]      Author  Topic: Atheistic Faith?  (Read 5183 times) Bass Magister Posts: 196 Reputation: 6.06 Rate Bass I'm a llama! Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #15 on: 2006-12-12 12:41:13 » [Bass 1] Well fair enough Hermit, another valid point well made. Once more you have expunged my confusion/ignorance. I apologize for my last post being so short, I had little time to spare and see now that it would have been better if I had waited. [Bass 2] Also Hermit are you suggesting that my parents for example are stupid here? [Hermit 1] Did your parents take a potentially rational atheist infant (you) and teach it to believe (accept as true without evidence or in the face of the evidence) things (irrational gods)? If they did that, I would suggest that they gravely harmed your potential to be rational, or at the very least, condemned you to a massive effort to unlearn what you were taught before you can hope to begin the process of learning to become rational. If they did this, I suggest that if deliberate that it was very nasty. If they did this and it was not deliberate, then it was very, very stupid indeed. If they did this, for whatever reasons, then it was extremely harmful. [Hermit 1.2] But I wasn't there, I don't know what your parents taught you – or more helpfully didn't teach you. If they taught, or did not teach you, I don't how they did or didn't do it. So, clearly I was not speaking about you or about your parents, as I am not qualified to do so. Even with what you have intimated here, I'm still quite unable to answer your question. Indeed, I suggest you are asking me a question that is quite probably best answered by yourself. As I had nothing to do with your upbringing or lack of it, please don't blame me for the conclusions you reach if you find them not to your liking.  After all, your parents, your upbringing, your conclusions. Nothing to do with me. [Bass 2.1] Of course I’m not going to blame you, lol; that would just be silly. But I can see what you are saying. I take no personal offence because I weyken now that you were relating what you said into general terms and not personal ones, which I agree with. [Bass 3] Also, do you hold that you have proven all these secrets on how a judeo-christian God is impossible in the Universe? If so please share it. [Hermit 2] I have frequently addressed the impossibilities of monsters sharing the claimed attributes of the Christian's gods in our Universe. It is in our archives. Before I go there again (which would bore me), I asked you a question which you (forgive me if I think, "as usual") didn't bother to respond to, and snipped without acknowledging it. So before asking me to continue, why don't you make an attempt at responding. Let me repeat my question in case it slipped your attention: ...please tell me what qualities the "higher power" to which you referred, the "flat out denial" of whose "existence" requires "just as much faith as believing in one does". Please be as specific as possible. After all, I don't know anything about your "higher-power", or how I would recognize it. Yet. But I'm sure you are going to tell me. And then we are going to dissect whatever substance you serve up. If any. Which I beg to doubt. [Bass 3.1] Ok, I’ll try. Personally I refer to myself as an agnostic-atheist type person, but I do enjoy quoting theistic thoughts and theological opinions, not out of any personal belief or faith, but just because I’m either interested or confused.  So I will try and describe a God type being (which I think logically could exist, though at grave odds) which hopefully will not bore you. Let’s say that everything in the universe, all the energy (from which matter is made) was, in essence, somehow (what is called) “God” (aka “higher power”).  Now if this “God” was the sum of all the energy in the universe, and perhaps beyond, then we could deem this “higher power” as omnipresent. Now if this “God” was omnipresent it would essentially be everything and make up everything even us. More, if this “God” was omnipresent then he would also be omniscient; for example, it is everywhere, so taking into account that it is everywhere (and essentially is and makes up everything) it would “know” everything. What’s more, if this “higher power” was the sum of all the energy in the universe (and perhaps beyond) it would be omnipotent. In my above example does the possibility of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence for such a being all logically fit together. The core of this outlook is that this God = all energy basically, and from here we can build up more outlooks such as the ones above. But here are some more. Since we are all of the same basic and fundamental energy, we are all really one and the same thing in unity (“higher power” aka “God”). So basically here nothing is really separate at all, separation becomes an illusion with separation being subjective and unity being objective (the divine dichotomy - that two contradictory truths can exist, neither making the other untrue). If we look at string theory and the tiny strings of energy, perhaps one of the fundamental hidden dimensions is one which allows a single super massive tiny string to oscillate in such a way that it can manifest vast copies of itself under extreme conditions and lead to events such as the big bang, so everything was one and the same thing but that became separated, which would be but a subjective and illusional result of the hidden dimension, thus defining the omnipresence of this idea. In this sense “God”, being all there is and always sufficient unto itself, would have no need of anything and therefore have no requirements of humanity. Although the “intentions” of this “God” would be very questionable, so omni benevolence is something which I can not apply to this idea. The “will” of “God” (so to speak) here seems to be missing. From what I also see here "knowing" and "experiencing" oneself are different things. That-which-Is, cannot know itself fully, as it stands. It cannot know itself as love, since no other object exists to love. It cannot know itself as giving since nothing else exists to give to. It cannot experience itself in myriad ways. So here the “illusion” of seperation is needed, and perhaps even parallel universes, for this “unity” to just simply experience itself. Stephen Hawkings once asked “why does the universe go to all the bother of existing at all” (or something like that) and my answer here using this idea would be just to experience itself in every way possible, which is probably infinate and so carry on for eternity. This present universe (multiverse) then is established by and within this “God” (“higher power”), so that sentience can exist which does not directly remember its true nature as this “higher power”. Split into a billion billion forms, life can live, experience, and rediscover its nature as this “higher power”, rather than just "know" itself in theory. It would be essentially a game, entered into by consensus, to learn and enjoy and explore, knowing that ultimately there is no finish line which some will not reach, no learning that is not without value, no act that does not carry lessons for future or for others. Here we have a common interest in keeping the game going, for there is nothing else to do except to experience our existence and then experience more of it, to uncover deeper layers of truth and understanding. There are no external rules, because all experience is valued, and can be chosen. But within this, there are ways that (it is stated and implied) people will gradually come to learn are better, and ways which are worse, learnings that will take place over time, and perhaps over hundreds and thousands of lifetimes (perhaps over generations or reincarnation, or maybe both). Perhaps where reincarnation is concerned experience in the form of energy is reincarnated over time via other hidden dimentions, and so we cannot remember. Sounds murky and I don’t really know, but its just a guess. Anyway, perhaps in some sense we are not here to learn anything new but to remember what we already know and that physical reality is really just an illusion established and made via these hidden dimentions of space. If so then reality becomes a representation created by will. Well Hermit, I hope this is something new and unlike other (irrational) concepts of “God(s)” you have come across. I did really try to make this as interesting as possible. I will look forward to your reply, as this does somewhat fascinate me and I’ve been thinking on it awhile. Regards Bass Report to moderator   Logged Walter Watts Archon Gender: Posts: 1571 Reputation: 8.89 Rate Walter Watts Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #16 on: 2006-12-12 14:17:53 » Me like this long time:    [Hermit wrote succinctly:] <snip> Now you have a structure for evaluation of god thingies. When somebody drags a rotting object into your presence and asserts that it is a god thingy or the fruits of a god thingy, don't argue. They possibly are better at argument and surely have more time to waste than you do (anyone who knows that this life is the only one we get knows that time is precious and irretrievable, not to be wasted). Ask for evidence sufficient to overcome the framework above. Anybody selling something else is selling snake oil. Treat them appropriately. When offered arguments, ask for evidence. Don't budge until you have some. This makes for good science and dooms theology to the history of the delusional - where it properly belongs. It also has the immense virtue of having very little logic to think about, and much less philosophy than usual to consider. <snip> Thanks. Walter "When offered arguments, ask for evidence. Don't budge until you have some." Absofuckinglutely Report to moderator   Logged Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc. No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how! Hermit Archon Posts: 4287 Reputation: 8.94 Rate Hermit Prime example of a practically perfect person Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #17 on: 2006-12-12 20:57:17 » [Walter] Thanks Hermit Bows Bass said a lot about the Bass' monster :-). Hermit asks just one rhetorical question, "Where is the evidence for considering Bass' higher-power"? And answers himself, "No where." So this is a purely hypothetical exercise in constructing an instance of a god thingie. Like all of them I have seen before, I suggest that it attempts to create something too far away from what we know, that Bass' monster is too powerful, too putatively all inclusive to be viable. I think Betrand Russell was right. The gods of the Ancient Greek civilizations were much more challenging to dispose of, as they only differed in a few slight ways from men - and the Ancient Greeks did not have to deal with modern science. Unfortunately for this class of mental masturbation, we do. As such, I suggest that Bass reevaluate his hypothetical god monster in the light of: 1) The speed of light Which would tend to prevent Bass' monster from being aware of anything, and as it takes energy to send a signal a distance, its first thought would result in the immediate extraction of all the energy in the Universe to propagate information between its infinite bits. Information about the local collapse of energy availability would then be propagated in an instantaneous case of entropy escalating runaway feed-back which would then freeze the Universe solid. As the Universe is not at absolute zero, it seems that this monster has not and cannot ever experience anything, never mind a thought. 2) The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem and thermodynamics This is based in information and signal theory and limits the maximum information density of a channel to below 50% of the bandwidth of the channel (how much less than 50% depends largely on the quality of the filter used). Thus a channel comprised of the Universe over its period of existence could only carry 50% of the information held in the Universe in that period. Further, we know that most of the Universe is at temperatures above absolute zero. Thus the molecules of the Universe are in motion. This motion not only causes and influences many if not most macro-level effects, it is also true noise and can neither be predicted nor compressed. To know everything about the Universe, Bass' monster would need to be aware of these molecular motions. Unfortunately, double the material of the Universe would need to be available to store the state at one point, so this poor creature would effectively be pre-amnesic unless it limited or abstracted the amount of information stored. In which case it would not be omniscient or even prescient. It would also suffer from memory overload almost irrespective of the degree of compression used. 3) The Heisenberg uncertainty principle This says that no only can we not predict, and of course, without predictive ability, we can't act effectively, but we can't even establish all the information about what has happened.  This implies that Bass' monster cannot be aware of even a fraction of what happens in the Universe, and depending on how much it knows, its ability to act on the information would be severely constrained. 4) The implications of Universality Whether dealing with Set theory, where the Universe is the set of everything including itself, or our baryonic Universe, one of the generally accepted laws is Universal inclusivity or Universal contamination containment. In other words if something can interact with the matter, energy or (from Energy-Information duality) information in our Universe, then that something is by definition within our Universe which is, by definition, a container for everything, real and imaginary which shares the rules of our Universe. The implications of breaking this rule are rather fierce as it would invalidate Special (and thus General) Relativity which, if possible, would undoubtedly be observable. The fact that observations have not yet invalidated Special Relativity suggests that Bass' monster does not exist. 5) The implications of Energy as it Applies to Us Finally we know, to a remarkable degree of accuracy, about all the forms of energy available in our Baryonic Universe (and about the hypothetical energies in a non-Baryonic Universe too). We are able to measure all the known forms of energy at levels far below that where they could have an effect on our neurons. As, we have not detected any "strange" or "unexpected" forms of energy in our brains with the remarkably sensitive machines we build to investigate what happens in our brains and how, it is quite safe to say that no such energy exists. Further, we know where our memories are stored, and how; and know that the mechanisms don't survive death (See, e.g. the discussion at  Church of Virus BBS, General, FAQ, FAQ: Cryonics, medical or embalming technology?.). In any case, even if the tiny distributed electrochemical charges were somehow translated into free energy by some unknown and undetected mechanism, that would leave them without the brain structure which is also necessary for the energy to be meaningful, and the power would be so low that, given the inverse square law of electromagnetic propagation, it would be mixed up with all the other noise that surrounds us within a few centimeters. And in case you didn't know, one of the characteristics of noise is that if you mix any signal with noise at the same or greater amplitude, then the original signal can no longer be recovered. So please forget "reincarnation." It is as iffy as any other new-agey nonsense. Kind Regards Hermit Bass may find Church of Virus BBS, Cathedral, The Pit, Why God cannot exist by Joe Dees & Hermit useful. « Last Edit: 2006-12-12 23:59:22 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999 Bass Magister Posts: 196 Reputation: 6.06 Rate Bass I'm a llama! Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #18 on: 2006-12-14 12:28:18 » Tthat was quite mind-blowing Hermit...and I say that quite literally. It would seem that you have completly expunged any attempt of an omniscient god with scientific evidence. I take my hat of to you. But can or could omnipresence be expunged from rational thought in such a way too? If so then I think that would be evidence enough to say that the Judeo-christian type God really cannot and does not exist.  Brilliant works. And thanks to Walter for your input there, very nice Quote from: Hermit on 2006-12-12 20:57:17    Bass may find Church of Virus BBS, Cathedral, The Pit, Why God cannot exist by Joe Dees & Hermit useful. I really want to view this but I am not allowed to view that section for some reason. (GRRRRRR!!!) Regards, Bass Report to moderator   Logged Hermit Archon Posts: 4287 Reputation: 8.94 Rate Hermit Prime example of a practically perfect person Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #19 on: 2006-12-15 07:05:13 » Omnipresence is not impossible, but then again, what we know of omnipresence isn't helpful to irrational religions. The one omnipresent thing we are aware of is spacetime, which is not only omnipresent (and expanding), but which, if current theory holds up, will continue to exist until one Planck unit of time (5.39121 × 10-44 seconds) after the last proton evaporates some 200 billion years from now when, with the evaporation of all matter, gravity, spacetime and our Universe will quietly cease to be. So the omnipresence of spacetime could be argued to be necessary for the existence of our Universe. Spacetime as it exists in our Universe (which may be different in other universii) is the inertial stage, infinitely expandable, upon and against which matter and energy dances. However, it is not aware. I say that because, we know, for reasons I have already addressed that the Universe as a whole is not able to process anything at the macro level and because we don't think spacetime is capable of storing information on a local basis either (though this understanding may change or be changed if Hawking radiation is proved to exist) and as such we are fairly sure that spacetime is currently incapable of being deployed as a Turing machine. That means that our current understanding is that spacetime, while omnipresent, is not capable of awareness (at least not as humans are). Without awareness, spacetime clearly has no "godly" significance or attributes (unless the seriously weird results of the successor's to the Cambridge (Bell) experiments, which seem to prove that spooky action at a distance actually happens (and which could be interpretted to mean that particles are prescient), can be referred to as godly). Aside from spacetime, nothing permeates all parts of the Universe. Not even cosmic background radiation, and even if it did, as already shown, it cannot support awareness. So if you want to argue for spacetime as god, you have to accept that the god is incapable of thought, or action. I suspect that most of the conventionally religious would probably object to having their gods relegated to a kind of non-replaceable wallpaper, no matter how cosmic. Kind Regards Hermit PS Blunderov, the proof you mentioned sounds similar to my "Proof of the non-existence of gods from Set Theory and Physics" which is one way to achieve this process and is hopefully somewhere in our archives. While I'm not going to repeat the formal logic, in order to avoid the limitations of the notations available in this media, here is my set-theory recipe in words. Of course, anything which can be expressed in set-theory can also be expressed in a suitable logical  calculus and usually in a logical algebra. Let me begin by introducing a few ideas conversationally: The Universe contains everything real and imaginary that is possible to exist in the Universe. Special Relativity tells us that everything sharing an inertial frame is subject to the same laws. General Relativity tells us that for every inertial frame there is a transform which will allow its projection into any other inertial frame, and that therefore for all laws there are transforms allowing their projection onto any inertial frame. There are probably things in the Universe which we don't currently have sufficient knowledge about to be able to classify as "real" or "imaginary". Given that the reason these objects are unknown is due to our lack of experience with them, it makes no difference to us which set they are in, "unknown" or "imaginary", until we gain the experience with them to make the determination. So now lets formalize that a little: Everything we know about or will know about that has or will existed or that can or will be imagined or which we may learn about in the future is a member of U0 the Universal set, or the set of all sets. U0 contains {rqi}, containing things real {r}, unknown {q} and imaginary {i}). {rqi} contains at least two sets, possibly one or more of them empty: {r}; {qi} and theoretically, potential unions between these sets. In this instance the union {r} U {qi} is empty because the elements of {r} have attributes matching reality which are incompatible with the elements of {qi}. We begin by placing everything into the {qi} set, assuming that the items are all unknown until we have inspected them, learned about them and made a determination. We agree that for the purposes of the exercise, that it does not matter whether something is unknown or imaginary, in either case we will agree that the object does not have a real existence until it can be carefully inspected. It is clear that many objects in Urqi belong in {r}. It is also easy to determine a process which will result in the valid transfer of members which belong in {r} from {qi}; and that is that the elements which should be transferred possess one or more attributes which make their reality clear. This may be measured using appropriate instruments for physical quantities. Mass, Lumens, Charge, Radiation, Temperature, Force, Pressure. It is also clear that courtesy of General and Special Relativity, any attributes assigned to potential members of {r} may not include attributes which conflict with the known laws of the Universe as this qualifies the object as imaginary as a conflict would prevent the construction of a transform to make the object compatible with the rules of our inertial frame.. So when an object which might otherwise be compatible with {r} can be shown to have such attributes, then they more properly belong to {i} which is a subset of {qi}. We begin our process of identifying suitable methods, applying them and transferring members of {qi} to {r} as they are identified as having one or more classes of attributes susceptible to measurement. Clearly associated with each element of {r} there is at least one (there may be more than one) measurable attribute which qualifies it for transfer to {r} and which can be quantified by means of appropriate tests. When finished with this process, everything we know to be real will be in {r}. When we are finished, {r} will not include any "gods" for the simple reason, that nobody can tell us which attributes they posses which qualify them for membership in {r}, or, when godhood includes impossible attributes, qualifies them for {i}, which leaves them irrevocably in {qi}. But there is a one-to-one correspondence between {r} and things in the "real world". Therefore anything not in {r} is not compatible with existence in the "real world", therefore the gods are not compatible with existence(i.e. have no reality). Or more succinctly, Godhood is incompatible with reality. QED. « Last Edit: 2006-12-15 07:08:16 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999 Hermit Archon Posts: 4287 Reputation: 8.94 Rate Hermit Prime example of a practically perfect person Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #20 on: 2006-12-15 07:47:42 » [Hermit] Bass may find Church of Virus BBS, Cathedral, The Pit, Why God cannot exist by Joe Dees & Hermit useful. [Bass] I really want to view this but I am not allowed to view that section for some reason. [Hermit] A matter of insufficient reputation. Let me help by copying the beginning of that thread here (This is a linear single post of a series of posts, with none omitted and with the poster reflected at the top of each section). Yellow sections are editorial additions. I have performed a little formatting and editing; [Metahuman] [Hermit: This was attributed to Dees and I, but source references were unfortunately not provided and I don't have the time to try to locate the originals. My feeling is that up to the paragraph beginning "There's much much more" is more likely by Dees (or possibly a synthesis), what follows is more likely my writing.] Define "God" If it can be defined, then if the definition meets the generally accepted definition [e.g. omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, immortal] by the religious many, then it can be shown that it [God] cannot exist in our Universe. The generally accepted definition of God is logically flawed. For instance: 1. It is impossible for both omniscience (all-knowingness) and omnipotence (all- powerfulness) to inhere in the same being, since a being that knew the future would be powerless to change it, and a being that could change the future could not know it in advance, and 2. an omnipresent being could not perceive, for one perceives from a perspective that is not identical with the object of perception, and such a viewpoint would be lacking for an omnipresent being, and 3. it is even impossible for a perfect being to think, for perfection is singular, and thought is the movement of mind between multiple concepts), but they are also violations of Occam's Razor, in that there is no necessity for the concept to explain the perceptions we have, and it is not either verifiable nor falsifiable, and therefore is an article of belief, not knowledge, and... well, there's lots more, but that should be enough. The classical attributes of a deity are singularity ("there can only be one") omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), omnipresence ('(S) He’s everywhere!"), omni beneficence (all-good), and omni-sentience (all-true). One can immediately see that the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence cannot simultaneously inhere in a single universe. If a deity were omniscient (knew everything), then it would know the future and thus be powerless to change it, but if it were omnipotent (all-powerful), then it could change the future, and therefore could not know it for certain. It's like the simultaneous impossibility of an irresistible force and an immoveable object; if one of these two deific properties exists (and they are considered to be the most important two), then the other logically cannot. Furthermore, if deity were everywhere, it could perceive nothing, for perception requires a point of view, that is, a spatiotemporal perspective other than that of the perceived object from which to perceive that object. Deity being omnipresent (everywhere), there is nowhere that deity would not be, thus nothing it could perceive. It gets even worse. Deity must be perfect; in fact, perfection is what is broken down into all those 'omni' subcategories. Thus, a perfect deity could not even think. Thought is dynamic, that is, to think, one's thought must move between conceptions. Now, thought could conceivably move in three directions; from perfect to imperfect, from imperfect to perfect, and from imperfect to imperfect (from perfect to perfect is not an alternative, perfection being singular and movement requiring distinguishable prior and posterior). But all of the three possible alternatives contain either prior or posterior imperfection or both, which are not allowably entertained in the mind of a perfect deity. There's much, much more that I could add, but this should more than suffice to demonstrate that asserting the existence of a deity possessing the attributes that most consider essential to it deserving the deific appellation mires one in a miasmic quagmire of irretrievable contradiction, once one journeys beyond emotion-driven faith and uses one's noggin to divine (Luvzda pun!) the nonsensical and absurd consequences necessarily entailed. Heisenberg, tells us that omniscience is not possible at the particle level. Once one obtains complete information about a particle it evaporates. So the simple fact that baryonic matter exists tells us that there is no omniscient entity in our Universe. Given that so much else is dependent on causation at the particle level, omniscience is not possible at the macro level either - unless the Universe were frozen to absolute zero. The Universe is not frozen. Thus there are no omniscient creatures in the Universe. Given c as a constant, and given Universal expansion initially at near c, and apparently accelerating, any being which was omnipresent would take an infinite amount of time to communicate between its extremities, and would require an infinite amount of energy to do so. Given that the Universe is neither uniformly hot nor at absolute zero, we know there is no omnipresent being in our Universe. In addition, as all the energy would be used in transferring information, no energy would be available to do anything - thus omnipresence and omnipotence are mutually exclusive. The processing of information necessitates storage. Storage of information requires at least as many storage locations as the thing being stored unless the information being stored is highly compressible. As the Universe is comprised of particles which are truly a noise source, the Universe is not compressible and Shannon tells us that it will require a minimum of twice the material in the Universe to store the information inherent in the Universe. For one instant. Thus an omniscient god would be the Universe's largest amnesiac, unable to think from one moment to the next. Such a being would never be able to do anything. In other words, this is a contradiction between omniscience and omnipotence. As previously said, I could go on. The inventors of the gods were not philosophers, and were not scientists. They were prehistoric and historic con artists. "Wickedly good" mememakers. Mankind has moved on more than a bit since then in just about every possible way, while the "perfect" gods have remained frozen in time and left far behind. It is time to recognize that the only difference between our gods and other people's myths is perspective. And through a telescope, they are all far enough away to look identical. When we realize that, mankind will realize that Nietzsche's announcement was accurate and that it is time for some new memes. A little earlier we saw that we may already be on our way to obsolescence. Hopefully our memes will survive us. The CoV and the people in the CoV and our successors have the potential to help to form these replacement memes. A fun job indeed. [Flag] The problem I have with this is it is still based on the universal laws that we know. Given, if there is an "Alternate Force" or "God", however you want to say it, it might not be of this "dimension", or some type of alternate existence.  (stay with me, heh) The problem I see is that of the question, what created the existence we now live in? If nothing created it then that means existence has always been around, that time is infinitely negative. Meaning no matter how far back you reach, you'll never get to the start. So if you pick up a rock, you'll know that this has always been around, the atoms that compose it have never been created. And if the big bang theory is false then that would mean there has been an infinite amount of civilizations through-out the universe. My brain has trouble comprehending this being possible and I havn't seen any science that is able to explain it to my satisfaction. One being, that time and existence is in a loop. But the question there arises, what started this loop? The only possible answer I can come up with is that there must be some type of alternate force able to create. Whether it is an actual diety, or something as mechanical working as an insect is unknown to me. If there isn't any alternate existence and everything we understand now is all there is.. then I end up in a paradox with infinite negative time. Anyway, don't take any of this as being preachy, this is just my own opinion and knowledge with the subject. I'm always open to the possibility of being wrong. Anyone care to elaborate? [Hermit] I'm glad you are "open to the possibility of being wrong," because it is not a possibility but a near certainty that you are indeed wrong. Here is why. Courtesy of COBE (Refer http://www.walterwatts.com/images/cobe36.jpg link provided by Walter Watts) the Big Bang theory is as close to confirmed as science gets (in that it makes good predictions and is not contradicted by known observations). From this it follows that space-time was instantiated, along with Baryonic matter in he big bang. Prior to the Big Bang, there was no time, and thus attempting to refer to what may or may not have existed "before" the Big Bang is completely meaningless. Whatever may or may not have existed prior to our Universe's  instantiation (likely due to a gravitational fluctuation in the quantum flux) is irrelevant to this Universe, as the Big Bang "instantiated" this Universe and everything in it, including the rules under which it operates and the space-time in which this occurs*. As we do not detect sufficient material in the Universe to cause its eventual collapse, it appears that it will continue to expand until such time as the last Baryonic material evaporates around 200 billion years from now and space-time comes to an end. So according to current consensus theory, the Universe is not a loop, but a singularity. Once we know whether the hypothesized Hawking Radiation (Refer http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/hawk.html actually exists, we will know whether (no Hawking Radiation) our Universe is closed and probably a singularity or (Hawking Radiation confirmed) open and probably one of many possible Universii. As we understand Special Relativity (another well supported theory), which is based on the observations that the same rules apply everywhere in the Universe (except inside the Schwartzchild radius of a black-hole, which strictly speaking places singularities "outside" the Universe), anything which is not subject to the laws of this Universe cannot interact with our Universe (or the laws would not be laws), so postulating magical "extra dimensions in which to hide god-like beings must fail. If they existed, they could not break the previously referenced laws, and thus either would not have god-like attributes or could not interact with our Universe and thus don't (for us) exist. Hermit I say instantiated rather than created, as the possibility that this Universe could exist made its eventual occurrence a near certainty, and our actual existence confirms this possibility. No "act of creation" (which would require intent) is necessary to explain this, and thus postulating it as a possibility is logically invalid (Ockhams Razor). [Flag] Well, first, my argument doesn't rely at all on the Big Bang Theory being right or wrong. But keep in mind it is still cassified as a theory, which is why I left that open. Though I do agree it is most likely true. I merely wanted to relate the thought of an infinite amount of civilizations to help show how impossible it would seem. Anyway, I havn't seen any good explanations or theories for an infinite past. If you know of any, I'd be thankful for a link or copy/paste. If no type of creation ever occured then there never was a beginning (obviously). So why was there a mass of matter sitting from eterinity and it then suddenly "banged"? If something has existed for an infinite negative time then all posibilities that could occur have already occured. Yet, new things occur in the universe every second. Also, looking at evolution (which is almost fact now), you can see that all changes that were brought about were caused by something else. Everything that is brought-about from existence was caused. It's the basics of "Cause and Effect". Which I'm sure everyone is familiar with. So we could then say, 1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause. 2. The universe exists. 3. Therefore the universe must have a cause. This whole idea of an infinite past is known as, "Infinite Causal Regress" or ICR. And according to the science we know, it isn't possible. To believe in a mythical "God" that apparently can do anything and everything does not seem logical at all. But on the opposite side, does it sound logical to believe something (something being matter in the universe, and the universe itself) came into existence from "thin air"? You would have to believe it is possible to have a "Cause and Effect" scenerio only with no "Cause" present, just an effect. This would mean it is possible to materialize our imagination since that would need no cause, just an effect. Which all sounds just as illogical. Here's some more info: http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/infpast.html http://pub18.ezboard.com/fhavetheologywillarguerules.showMessage?topicID=7.topic http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0010/0010210.pdf Again, I'm not out to say God does or doesn't exist. I'm just out for the truth, and so far, I don't see definite proof for either. [Hermit] Your response, apparently attempting to reinvent the long discredited arguments of Aquinas, points to a number of very basic misconceptions. Probably not entirely your fault as many of the errors exhibited in your reply appear to enjoy wide circulation, due in my opinion, largely to completely inadequate school science programs delivered by utterly hapless teachers. So let me try to respond more to the fundamental misunderstandings exhibited rather than your "arguments" in the hope that a better comprehension of cosmology will provide a superior basis for your cognition on these issues. Only a theory: This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "theory." An hypothesis attempts to explain that which has been observed or inferred. A theory posits an explanation for the mechanisms causing the observation and is testable (i.e. falsifiable). A well supported theory has successfully passed through the application of all the steps of the scientific method  (Refer [ FAQ: The Scientific Method ] ) without any contradictions or flaws being detected. A strong theory is one which has been unsuccessfully challenged many times and which has allowed us to make predictions about things which had not been observed at the time of the prediction, but which have subsequently been observed and where the predictions match the observation to within the limits of error in the measurements. If a strong theory is to be rejected, an alternative theory which is more general, posits a simpler mechanism, makes good predictions, does not contradict known observations and withstands the peer review process must be offered. In the case of the Big Bang theory, this has not happened, although many have tried. So, the Big Bang theory, is, like the Darwinian Evolutionary theory, a strong theory. This means that, while theoretically falsifiable, for all intents and purposes it can be accepted as factual without significant fear of later contradiction. Next. I did not, and science does not, suggest an "infinite past." While time is a fundamental property of the Universe, it is not independent of space in any scientific sense. So time itself was instantiated in the Big Bang and thus there was no "time" prior to the Big Bang. We know the Big Bang occurred 14 +/- 2 Gy ago. We also know that the Universe (and thus space-time) will end in about 200 Gy from now. So neither forward nor backward can the Universe be called "infinite." The Universe did not instantiate from a "mass of matter sitting" anywhere, nor did it "materialize out of thin air". Matter energy duality makes this unnecessary and SR makes it impossible. Instead, the consensus opinion is that a gravitational fluctuation in the quantum flux triggered the production of a local concentration of strain energy. This erupted into the Big Bang (where the strain energy converted into infinite temperature in the sub-Planck-sized kernel), followed by the inflation phase (when time was instantiated (sometime before BB+10-12s)) at which point much of the available energy was converted into Baryonic mass (Protons, neutrons, electrons) during the primordial nucleosynthesis phase (i.e. prior to BB+2s). For an accessible introduction, I recommend:  [ Cosmic Mystery Tour ] Now to evolution. Fundamentally, all that evolution is, is the observation that changes occur in allelle frequencies. Yes it is "caused" in the sense that at a nano-scale, permutations and mutations have physical causes (although Heisenberg puts limits on how far we can follow this chain, even on a theoretical basis). But this has nothing to do with the selection process (survival of the fittest) which follows, and which following the theory of Darwinian Evolution results in the observed changes in allelle distribution. It should be especially noted that many changes are indeed unselected, having neither beneficial, nor harmful impact on the fitness of the mutating or permuting entity in any particular environment. These changes appear, however, critical to the development of complex adaptations even though it is only when the cumulative effect of such changes becomes significant that selection will operate upon them. In that sense, micro-evolution is frequently completely "uncaused" as  causal linkages need only occur after many essentially random stages of prior unselected change. Further, your entire argument of "causation" fails dismally at a quantum level, where not only is causation not present, were it present, the Universe could not exist, as, at a quantum level, information is energy, and causation at this level would require the transfer of information, thus energy, and the Universe would rapidly evaporate in an orgy of entropy (quantum evaporation). In addition, many metaevents (e.g. neural triggering in your brain, noise in a schottky diode) can be shown to rely, at least partially, on the aggregations of quantum events, as this noise will modify the threshold at which meta-events are triggered. Causation being random (and due to Heisenberg's limit, uninterrogatable) in such situations, your argument that "all events are caused" must fail. In nett effect, your assertion that "To believe in a mythical "God" that apparently can do anything and everything does not seem logical at all." appears sound, while the corollary you posit (a false dilemma in my opinion, in that there are an infinite number of possible things in which to believe) fails in that it is based on a range of unsupported and unsupportable assumptions, including those responded to above*. In short, it appears to me that you are presenting a false dilemma "supported" by a group of largely invisible strawmen which, while, in my experience, not atypical of god-advocates and the poorly educated, is not a particularly convincing basis for a logical discussion. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the higher the level of study of cosmology and physics attained, the less likely the student is to accept the idea of god-like beings. I would suggest that your advocacy for a more neutral stance is highly indicative of a need for further research on your part. Hermit *Please note that if Hawking Radiation exists, then "anything uncaused" occurring is quite likely not just possible but probable, as the presence of Hawking Radiation would suggest that singularities are not respectably isolated by the Schwarzschild barrier, but are topologically within the Universe. And the point of a singularity is that the rules within a singularity need not be the same as the rules within our Universe. However, at this time, the concept is purely hypothetical (it is not based upon observation) and is waiting on supporting evidence necessitating its acceptance (or causing its rejection). [Flag] My major is History and Politics at the University I attend of which I'm working to gain a Ph.D. So this is not really my subject as should be obvious. Just wanted to clear that up. With that out of the way, reading your link, "Cosmologists believe that all forms of matter and energy, as well as space and time itself, were formed at this instant. Since "before" is a temporal concept, one cannot ask what came before the Big Bang and therefore "caused" it, at least not within the context of any known physics." So, correct me if I'm wrong, before the Big Bang there was no time. Without time, a sequence of events couldn't occur, correct? Yet the initiating of the Big Bang is an event, it occured. If that is false in that nothing did initiate it then I have trouble understanding that to be possible. Because isn't an effect with no cause the same as, something happening without reason or initiation. Also this quote, "One cosmological theory, however, predicts that our universe's Big Bang is part of a chain reaction in which the demise of one universe spawns the birth of many, parallel, universes. According to this scenario, our universe may simply be part of a huge, infinitely growing fractal." Is this widely accepted? If so, doesn't that contradict the assement made earlier that there are no alternate universes, only this one and that is all. As I can see, for a better understanding I may need to do more research in cosmology, however not being anywhere near my subject of study I don't plan on spending any more money for classes that would not apply to my seeked profession. So, any books you want to recommend would be helpful as all learning would need to be on my own. And the reasons for wanting to learn more is not that I do accept it, but that I need to decide whether I accept or do not accept. I never make those decisions until I know a great deal about the idea presented to me. [Hermit] [Demon 1] [Flag 2] [Hermit 3] [Flag 3] [Hermit 4] [Hermit 5] ======== [Flag 3] Well, first, my argument doesn't rely at all on the Big Bang Theory being right or wrong. [Hermit 5] Apropos of something, I didn't intend to reply to those things which you seem to imagine to be arguments, due to lack of both perceived argument (An argument is a logically connected series of propositions intended to force a conclusion.) and time. However, lets try to fix that quickly. [Flag 2] The problem I have with this is it is still based on the universal laws that we know. [Hermit 5] And what else would you base an argument upon? "Universal laws" that we don't know? [Flag 2] Given, if there is an "Alternate Force" or "God", however you want to say it, it might not be of this "dimension", or some type of alternate existence.  (stay with me, heh) [Hermit 5] This is a "given" which is not compelled by any evidence and unable to be falsified. Thus an unsupported hypothesis and completely useless. Further, the proposition of an "alternate existence" ("dimension") being able to effect change in this Universe is rejected in [Hermit 3,] on the grounds that this would conflict with the strong theory of Special Relativity. You seem to have failed to address this objection. Please note that this is not an argument. You simply make a series of disconnected and unsupported assertions and ask for forbearance. I forbore. Previously. [Flag 2] The problem I see is that of the question, what created the existence we now live in? [Hermit 5] This is based on the unstated assumption that an act of creation is required for our Universe to exist. The Big Bang theory says that this is unnecessary. Thus your unstated assumption conflicts with a strong theory, and you have not put forth an alternative theory for examination. [Flag 2] If nothing created it then that means existence has always been around, that time is infinitely negative. [Hermit 5] I'm not sure what you mean by "infinitely negative" but your argument "If nothing created it then that means existence has always been around, that time is infinitely negative." is simply wrong - on numerous levels. Firstly, it contains a "false dilemma", in that "creation" or "always been around" are not the only possiblities. Secondly, we know that nothing was required to "create" the Universe (the Big Bang theory thorougly addresses the instantiation of the Universe), so introducing a creator is, as noted in Hermit 3, a logical error due to Ockham's Razor). You have failed to address this. [Flag 2] Meaning no matter how far back you reach, you'll never get to the start. [Hermit 5] This is simply wrong. We have gathered very impressive data of "the start" in the form of the previously referenced COBE results - and this (and multiple other methods drawing on alternative data (Radiation, H-R sequences, Hubble's Constant) yields a firm date for "the start" (i.e. the Big Bang). [Flag 2] So if you pick up a rock, you'll know that this has always been around, the atoms that compose it have never been created. [Hermit 5] A segue of logical errors. Firstly the conditional "no matter how far back you reach, you'll never get to the start" is false. Therefore anything which follows ("so") is also false. Secondly, we can date rocks very accurately, and this proves that rocks have not "always been around." Then we know (observations validating Quantum Mechanics) that matter is continuously instantiated (not created) and destroyed by events in the quantum flux, that matter and energy are convertable and that in addition to the primordial instantiation of light elements, that heavy elements are continuously synthesized in various cosmic events. These all falsify the disconnected propisition (not an argument) that "atoms that compose it have never been created" (reading instantiated for created as "created" here simply affirms the consequent). [Flag 2] And if the big bang theory is false then that would mean there has been an infinite amount of civilizations through-out the universe. [Hermit 5] Here is the root of your dilemma. The consensus opinion is that the Big Bang theory is not false, but instead is well supported. The "if" clause being false, the consequent is also false. In addition, "then that would mean there has been an infinite amount of civilizations through-out the universe" is not consequent on "if the big bang theory is false" and thus this is not a valid argument even had your "if" clause been true. [Flag 2] My brain has trouble comprehending this being possible [Hermit 5] While I can readily accept that your brain has comprehension problems, it is quite clear that other than as imaginary constructs, the above are not possible in the Universe in which we live. [Flag 2] and I havn't seen any science that is able to explain it to my satisfaction. [Hermit 5] I suggest that science explains it, but that your comprehension (minimal) of cosmology is preventing you from comprehending what science is telling you. My strong recommendation is to study more science. Ultimately this should result in your satisfaction. [Flag 2] One being, that time and existence is in a loop. [Hermit 5] Who suggested this? The Big Bang theory most definitely does not. [Flag 2] But the question there arises, what started this loop? [Hermit 5] Here you assume that your prior assertion, "time and existence is in a loop" is correct. You further rely on the unstated, unsupported and unsupportable assumption that all "loops" have "starts". You also fail to explain why the consequent is dependent on the prior assertion. Given that "existence" is not proven to be "in a loop", and given that the Big Bang theory quite satisfactorily explains instantiation, this "question" (more a series of disconnected assertions) is highly flawed. [Flag 2] The only possible answer I can come up with is that there must be some type of alternate force able to create. [Hermit 5] Yes, I can see that. Yet, as I have shown, this limitation is not generally shared. [Flag 2] Whether it is an actual diety, or something as mechanical working as an insect is unknown to me. [Hermit 5] Perhaps you should leave this alone until you have presented a case why an "alternate force able to create" which is over and above QM and the BB is required. [Flag 2] If there isn't any alternate existence and everything we understand now is all there is.. then I end up in a paradox with infinite negative time. [Hermit 5] Huh? Where did this come from? If a then b. Your a is, "there isn't any alternate existence" and "everything we understand now is all there is". If either proposition is false (and I'd suggest that the latter definitely is while the former is untestable), while your b is, "then I end up in a paradox with infinite negative time". I'm not sure what your b means or which hat you extracted it from, but your b is not conditional on a (and I suspect is false) and in any case, your a seems unconnected to your earlier assumptions. I suggest a course in logic as well as basic cosmology. [Flag 2] Anyway, don't take any of this as being preachy, this is just my own opinion and knowledge with the subject. I'm always open to the possibility of being wrong. [Hermit 5] You are. Wrong, that is. [Flag 2] Anyone care to elaborate? [Hermit 5] Sufficient elaboration yet? [Flag] [Demon 1] [Flag 2] [Hermit 3] [Flag 3] [Hermit 4] [Hermit 5] [Flag 7] [Hermit 8] ======== [Flag 7] My major is History and Politics at the University I attend of which I'm working to gain a Ph.D. So this is not really my subject as should be obvious. Just wanted to clear that up. [Hermit 8] No problem. Please pardon my earlier tone. I wasn't sure where you are coming from. [Flag 7] With that out of the way, reading your link, "Cosmologists believe that all forms of matter and energy, as well as space and time itself, were formed at this instant. Since "before" is a temporal concept, one cannot ask what came before the Big Bang and therefore "caused" it, at least not within the context of any known physics." So, correct me if I'm wrong, before the Big Bang there was no time. Without time, a sequence of events couldn't occur, correct? [Hermit 8] You are correct that there was no "time" (I would say "space-time"). However, a (very well understood) sequence  of events took place after the instantiating of the BB, and this included the intantiation of space-time. As space-time exists, and its very existence is conditional on the BB having occured, we know that the BB occured prior to the instantiation of space-time. [Flag 7] Yet the initiating of the Big Bang is an event, it occured. If that is false in that nothing did initiate it then I have trouble understanding that to be possible. [Hermit 8] We posit a fluctuation in the quantum flux triggered the BB. That such fluctuations occur all the time is well supported. That each such occurance results in the creation of a Universe is possible, but presently (and possibly always) untestable. [Flag 7] Because isn't an effect with no cause the same as, something happening without reason or initiation. [Hermit 8] Yes. But this happens all the time at the quantum level. Nothing to write home about. [Flag 7] Also this quote, "One cosmological theory, however, predicts that our universe's Big Bang is part of a chain reaction in which the demise of one universe spawns the birth of many, parallel, universes. According to this scenario, our universe may simply be part of a huge, infinitely growing fractal." [Hermit 8] This is a weak hypothesis. Weak because it is not grounded in observation (it cannot currently be, as all observations are by definition, in our Universe), but instead is an inductive extrapolation based on the fact that we posit that our Universe was instantiated by a quantum fluctuation and that it seems possible that other universii might be established by the same mechanism. [Flag 7] Is this widely accepted? If so, doesn't that contradict the assement made earlier that there are no alternate universes, only this one and that is all. [Hermit 8] It is widely hypothesised. There is no contradiction, in that, for us, all that is accessible is our Universe. Other universii may exist. We have no proof for or against this. If Hawking Radiation is measured, then the probability that other universii exist will be firmly established. [Flag 7] As I can see, for a better understanding I may need to do more research in cosmology, [Hermit 8] Agreed. [Flag 7] however not being anywhere near my subject of study I don't plan on spending any more money for classes that would not apply to my seeked profession. [Hermit 8] This does not, as you suggest, preclude you from pursuing a course of self-study. If you wish to explore this issue further, I suggest that it is a prerequisite. [Flag 7] So, any books you want to recommend would be helpful as all learning would need to be on my own. [Hermit 8] [ Understanding Cosmology: Recommended Reading ] contains some very accesible suggestions which should be available at your library. Not quite on your own :-) When not being "preached to" you will find Virians quite helpful :-) [Flag 7] And the reasons for wanting to learn more is not that I do accept it, but that I need to decide whether I accept or do not accept. I never make those decisions until I know a great deal about the idea presented to me. [Hermit 8] I applaud this. If we can help, ask away. [Flag] Thank you for the nice write-up. I'll gladly be looking for this book and other sources over the summer. Hopefully with the allocated time I'm going to have through-out summer I can better understand these ideas and come closer to a decision of accepting or rejecting. Your earlier tone is understandable. I'm sure you've dealt with many people intent on not finding the truth, but rather, preaching their own ideas they've come to believe beyond a doubt. In anycase, I also understand the effort that went into the rebuttal of my arguments with sources to back them up, which is duly noted. Good day [Rhinoceros] Several replies were posted since I wrote this, but what the... I'll post it anyway. Here is an idea or two: I would ask... If an infinite causal regress is impossible, why is an eternal first cause (one which goes infinitely back in time) possible? Isn't it impossible too for the same reasons? Shouldn't we apply the same logic to this alternative? In the core of this line of reasoning we find the same old "paradox": Neither a (spacially) infinite universe nor a (spacially) finite universe is acceptable by our perception and our logic. If the universe is finite, what if we take one more step. If time has a beginning, what was there one minute before? And still, how can we accept infinity in the light of logical arguments such as the one for the impossibility of infinite causal regress? Why does this kind of logical reasoning seem futile when applied to this kind of questions? Here is a way out: Logic originated from our perception of the world and so did our perception of time and hence causality. Our perception of the world is what makes us identify objects as different entities and ask questions such as "Does this exist or not?", "Where is this?", "How large is this?", "When did that happen?", "How does this change?", "Did this happen or not?", "What caused that?". We stumbled on standard procedures (observations and measurements) for giving answers to these questions and, as a result, spacial and temporal perception evolved into our brains during the cosmically tiny "time" interval that our species has been around. This is who we are. We are doomed to see the world as objects, space, and time. Well... almost. We can still work on improving our perception of the world in indirect ways by figuring out new procedures which work, using testable theories. (Note: By the way, the phrase "But keep in mind it [the Big Bang] is still classified as a theory" is a bit misled. There is a difference between a scientific theory and a plain vanilla theory or a conjecture. Everything we "know" about the physical world is just that: scientific theories, verifiable and open to falsification. Proof exists only in mathematics and formal logic. If we apply the (proven) Pythagorean Theorem to measure some real estate, we are still using an "unproven" scientific theory which says that our space has Euclidian metrics.) In the cosmically tiny "time" interval that our species has been around, the laws of nature have remained unchanged as far as we can tell. However, we do have scientific theories which tell us that: space and time are inseparably associated with the presence of matter (general theory of relativity) and the laws of nature which we know regarding space-time and causality do not apply under extreme conditions, such as in black holes. They didn't apply at the early stages of the big bang either. They were created there, along with all forms of matter, space, and time. So, asking what was there before the big bang or using a logical argument saying that the "universe is (or is not) infinite in time" seems to be meaningless. The universe is not "in time". Time, as well as space, are properties of the universe we currently live in and of all the matter it contains, as projected to us through our evolved perception of the world. What can we do then? We can make any conjectures we want. Our imagination is the limit. If our conjectures have any practical implications they can be tested and possibly made into a falsifiable scientific theory. If not, we can keep them and talk about them if it pleases us or helps us keep our thoughts together, or we can just use Occam's razor to discard them. Example: "We live in a matrix made in such a way that we can never tell." (Note: Of course, Occam's razor is not a principle of logic but a heuristic principle, a guiding tool associated with methodological reductionism. It is not guaranteed to give us the correct answer, but it usually helps keep our reasoning manageable and garbage-free.) We can even argue for the existence of a "blanket entity" which covers everything we don't know or don't understand and call it god. It has been done many times in the past, because many people feel more stable that way. In the case of the christian god, the god blanket has many times been officially "pulled" from the parts of reality for which we obtained an understanding. That said, while I am all for presenting people with practically meaningful questions which they'll have to try to figure out, rather than any "blanket entity" that will give them a false sense of understanding, I don't have any problem with beliefs which don't really "intersect" with "this world", nor with people covering a psychological/social need of theirs in this way. The appeal and the proliferation of religions throughout history, even their recurrent hijacking by authority for building tribes, nations, empires, for the better or for the worse, seems to be a clue that there is a natural need of humans to fill-in the empty parts of their worldview with imaginary entities responsible for producing one result or another. What makes that unnecessary for me is just my own confidence, or belief, in the promises of scientific research. [Flag] Greetings it's been about 5 months. Here's an update on my beliefs: After I left this thread with my final comments I read several cosmology websites but needed more. I went to my local library and found what I could. I then bought several books online including some other recommendations from the main site. I decided I also needed to better understand Christianity's foundations as previously my emphasis in History was largely after the beginnings of the Frankish Empire. I took a course at my University, and I also researched both online and at the library. I've since found many interesting things about Christianity, specifically its rise to influence and the creation of the bible at Nicea. Other things like the contradictions between Paul and other gospel writers became very apparent; Humans being around for only 6,000 years just didn't make sense when Mesopotamian sites clearly date back to 7,000 B.C.E. All of this becomes inconsequential though when you look at who wrote it. To make a long story short I now consider myself an Atheist. It's a funny thing, I look back at how I thought and how I argued for religion; it seems so irrational now I wonder how I thought at all. I do want to offer a thanks and appreciate your willingness to help. I've still got a lot more reading to do but it's a start. Report to moderator   Logged With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999 Blunderov Archon Gender: Posts: 3160 Reputation: 8.90 Rate Blunderov "We think in generalities, we live in details" Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #21 on: 2006-12-15 14:51:38 » Quote from: Hermit on 2006-12-15 07:05:13    PS Blunderov, the proof you mentioned sounds similar to my "Proof of the non-existence of gods from Set Theory and Physics" which is one way to achieve this process and is hopefully somewhere in our archives. While I'm not going to repeat the formal logic, in order to avoid the limitations of the notations available in this media, here is my set-theory recipe in words. Of course, anything which can be expressed in set-theory can also be expressed in a suitable logical  calculus and usually in a logical algebra... ...But there is a one-to-one correspondence between {r} and things in the "real world". Therefore anything not in {r} is not compatible with existence in the "real world", therefore the gods are not compatible with existence(i.e. have no reality). Or more succinctly, Godhood is incompatible with reality. QED. [Blunderov] Thank you for this. Very clear. And I do believe that you must have reproduced the previous formal argument to which I had referred. I'm a little stuck about how to fit the quantum foam into set(r). How does one quantify potential? Here is an interesting snippet that I chanced upon in "Scientific American: Special Edition; The Frontiers of Physics. 2006." (From article "That Mysterious Flow" by Paul Davies.) "Nobody really knows... What is time anyway? Saint Augustine of Hippo, the famous 5th century theologian, remarked that he knew well what time is-until somebody asked. Then he was at a loss for words. Because we sense time psychologically, definitions of time based on physics seem dry and inadequate. For the physicist time is simply what (accurate) clocks measure. Mathematically it is a one-dimensional space, usually assumed to be continuous, although it might be quantized into discreet "chronons", like frames of a movie. The fact that time may be treated as a fourth dimension does not mean that it is identical to the three dimensions of space. Time and space enter into daily experience and physical theory in distinct ways. For instance the formula for calculating spacetime distances is not the same as the one for calculating spatial distances. The distinction between space and time underpins the key notion of causality, stopping cause and effect from being hopelessly jumbled. On the other hand, many physicists believe that on the very smallest scale of size and duration, space and time might lose their seperate identities." [Bl.] I quite like the above speculation; it makes it easy to understand the BB as the mighty tearing asunder of space and time. What sort of awesome force/event would achieve this cosmic splitting-of-the-atom I wonder? Somewhat unheralded, in the 20th Century philosophy has finally found something new to agonise over; time. And a very difficult problem it is proving to be. Is time an observer created reality? It seems that there might be such. The following article bent me all out of shape for days. The best I could come up with is that all this has something to do with my bete noir, "information". (The Rhino has a lot to answer for.) That's as far as I've got, sadly. 19 August 2006 New Scientist Review Quantum Enigma: Physics encounters consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, OUP, $29.95, 15BN 019517559X WHERE MIND MEETS MATTER Marcus Chown is intrigued by a new take on what quantum theory really means - something we still don't understand despite its success in getting to grips with the subatomic world. • ONE of the most scandalously bad misrepresentations of physics in recent years is the drama-documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, released in 2004• The film promulgated the idea that according to quantum theory, you can change everyday reality simply by thinking about it. In the fictional story. the main character successfully uses this mind-over-matter technique to thin her thighs. Depressingly, it is the fifth-biggest-grossing documentary in the US. The irony here is that the true world revealed by quantum theory - which remains our best description of the microscopic world of atoms - is far wilder than anything in the movie. It is a world where an atom can be in two places at once - the equivalent of you being in London and Tokyo simultaneously. This is not some theoretical fantasy: it is possible to observe an atom in two places at once, or at least the consequences of this. It's a world where one atom can influence another instantaneously even if they are on opposite sides of the universe. This property was deemed so outrageous by Einstein that he held it up as proof that quantum theory was not nature's last word on reality (though experiments appear to show that Einstein was wrong). Furthermore, it's a world where things happen for absolutely no reason at all, where events are irreducibly random in a way utterly unlike the pseudo-random roll of a die in the everyday world. This quantum weirdness is expounded clearly by physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner, who teach a course on these fundamental ideas at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Indeed, the bulk of their book Quantum Enigma serves as an entertaining primer on the nuts and bolts of quantum theory. However, what principally interests the authors is not quantum theory's fantastically successful recipe for prediction, but what the theory "means". This takes them to the boundary of physics and philosophy: the observer-created reality. An atom does not travel through space along a single path with 100 per cent certainty as a planet does. Rather, it has a large number of possible paths open to it, each with a particular probability. When the atom is "observed", one and only one of the possibilities is actualised. Thus, reality is created by observation. Here the authors make their most controversial assertion: that the observer must be conscious. Consciousness, they believe, is intimately tied up with quantum processes. Many physicists think that the phenomenon of" decoherence" does away with the need for a conscious observer. Decoherence explains why an atom on its own can do many things at once, while entities composed of many atoms, such as humans, cannot. This is because in a large collection of atoms it is impossible for the quantum waves associated with each to overlap sufficiently (a state known as "coherence") to allow them to interfere - the key behind all quantum weirdness. Some believe a conscious observer is not necessary for decoherence to take place. However, Rosenblum and Kuttner point out that while decoherence explains why you and 1 are never in two places at once, it does not explain why a single atom is in one place rather than another. For an atom to become fixed, a conscious observer is essential, they argue. Rosenblum and Kuttner thus tie together two great mysteries: consciousness, and the "quantum enigma" of how reality coalesces out of the fog of quantum possibilities. They never spell out what they think the connection is, they only emphasise that it is an enigma at the heart of quantum theory that physicists must sooner or later confront head-on. They also remind us that we have not got to the bottom of quantum theory by a long chalk. We still need a new way of seeing and, as quantum philosopher John Bell said, "The new way of seeing will involve an imaginative leap that will astonish us." • Marcus Chown is the author of The Quantum Zoo Joseph Henry Press, 2006) Report to moderator   Logged Walter Watts Archon Gender: Posts: 1571 Reputation: 8.89 Rate Walter Watts Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #22 on: 2006-12-15 16:30:27 » Did someone mention time? <snip> "What is time anyway?" <snip> I thought I'd dust of this 'ol thing on time that kicks around some of our long-held prejudices on the matter. http://www.walterwatts.com/images/viewfromnowhen.pdf Regards from nowhen, Walter « Last Edit: 2006-12-15 16:35:10 by Walter Watts » Report to moderator   Logged Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc. No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how! Hermit Archon Posts: 4287 Reputation: 8.94 Rate Hermit Prime example of a practically perfect person Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #23 on: 2006-12-15 16:30:50 » [Blunderov] Thank you for this. Very clear. And I do believe that you must have reproduced the previous formal argument to which I had referred. [Hermit] Reproduced? I suspect I can claim priority :-). If you ever find it again, please let me know. I first wrote a formal proof from set-theory to beat my genius sister over the head with in the very late eighties or very early nineties, so it would be interesting to see if the one you found is earlier or later. [Blunderov] I'm a little stuck about how to fit the quantum foam into set(r). How does one quantify potential? [Hermit] On the one hand, quantum effects are real and measurable. As are energy levels. The existence of quantum particles, their particle-energy duality and their behavior is inductively supported, but highly predictive. Which allows them to appear in {r} as real (measurable) phenomena . On the other hand, quantum foam or flux is a useful abstraction, granting a persistence and continued existence to quanta primarily for the benefit of physicists and cosmologists considering strange things which seem prone to shun such merely human notions. The foam or flux is a beautiful abstraction and while "possible", IMO belongs in {ui}rather than {r}. [Blunderov quotes Paul Davies] ONE of the most scandalously bad misrepresentations of physics in recent years is the drama-documentary What the Bleep Do We Know? [Hermit nods vigorously] Any film which quotes Harvard's most embarrassing mistake, John Hagelin ("People who don't meditate don't have souls" and double Ignoble Laureate) on  physics has serious issues to put it rather conservatively. [Blunderov quotes Paul Davies] Some believe a conscious observer is not necessary for decoherence to take place. [Hermit] Not only is this true, but Heisenberg himself argued strenuously against this "ridiculous idea" of Max Bohr's. [Blunderov quotes Paul Davies] Rosenblum and Kuttner thus tie together two great mysteries: consciousness, and the "quantum enigma" of how reality coalesces out of the fog of quantum possibilities. They never spell out what they think the connection is, they only emphasise that it is an enigma at the heart of quantum theory that physicists must sooner or later confront head-on. [Hermit] I suggest the reason they "never spell out what they think the connection is" is simply because it doesn't exist except in a certain yearning for the discredited "old-one" to borrow a phrase from Einstein (at the very instant of his second greatest error). [Hermit] Search our archives for Bell Inequalities and Cambridge Experiment for much more on this subject. Kind Regards Hermit « Last Edit: 2006-12-15 16:36:30 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999 Walter Watts Archon Gender: Posts: 1571 Reputation: 8.89 Rate Walter Watts Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #24 on: 2006-12-15 16:41:58 » Great minds post at almost the same time. [Me] Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #22 on: Today at 15:30:27 » [Hermit] Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #23 on: Today at 15:30:50 » serendipitously, Walter Report to moderator   Logged Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc. No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how! Hermit Archon Posts: 4287 Reputation: 8.94 Rate Hermit Prime example of a practically perfect person Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #25 on: 2006-12-15 17:23:09 » So Time when it is not a magazine, nor a co-quality of space (time outside of space is even more meaningless than time outside an inertial reference) is clearly related in some way to great minds. This must be how the ancients determined that "Time flies like an arrow - and fruit flies like a banana.' Have a wonder-filled weekend Kind Regards Hermit Report to moderator   Logged With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999 Bass Magister Posts: 196 Reputation: 6.06 Rate Bass I'm a llama! Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #26 on: 2007-08-15 23:19:35 » Quote from: Hermit on 2006-12-12 20:57:17    I suggest that Bass revaluate his hypothetical god monster... Ok, after months and months of thinking and writing, le'me try. I've been readng about Quantum Mechanics. Very interesting stuff. Quote from: Hermit on 2006-12-12 20:57:17    1) The speed of light Which would tend to prevent Bass' monster from being aware of anything, and as it takes energy to send a signal a distance, its first thought would result in the immediate extraction of all the energy in the Universe to propagate information between its infinite bits. But what about the EPR Paradox? Something here takes place at faster than light speeds and, as far as I have read, has been proven by experimentation; thus violating classical physics. As far as I know the effect between particles here is instantaneous with the time interval at zero. So, at the quantum scale, particles could communicate at faster than light (instantaneous) speeds, thus making omniscience a possibility between vast scales. In this sense it really would be the little things that count (since they make up everything). Perhaps, due to gravitons (which are massless and thus able to travel at faster then light speeds), everything is aware, and thus 'connected' to everything else, since everything in the universe is gravitationally aware of everything else. And if the universe expanded from a single point (a singularity in the big bang) then this would be logically consistent, no? Quote from: Hermit on 2006-12-12 20:57:17    2) The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem and thermodynamics To know everything about the Universe, Bass' monster would need to be aware of these molecular motions. Unfortunately, double the material of the Universe would need to be available to store the state at one point, so this poor creature would effectively be pre-amnesic unless it limited or abstracted the amount of information stored. In which case it would not be omniscient or even prescient. It would also suffer from memory overload almost irrespective of the degree of compression used. But what if there are an infinite number of regions of space the same size as our observable universe - an infinite number of (parallel) universes, that is. An infinite set (which must contain, among other things, an infinite number of identical copies of us, much less then the radius of an atom away) resulting in an open multiverse? An infinite open multiverse sounds to me like more then enough material to store the state at any one point. Quote from: Hermit on 2006-12-12 20:57:17    3) The Heisenberg uncertainty principle This says that no only can we not predict, and of course, without predictive ability, we can't act effectively, but we can't even establish all the information about what has happened.  This implies that Bass' monster cannot be aware of even a fraction of what happens in the Universe, and depending on how much it knows, its ability to act on the information would be severely constrained. Yeah ok, but if a multiverse is probabilistic in nature then everything can happen. If there were an omniscient observer then it wouldn't need to predict, it would simply know given that all possibilities take place. What we consider uncertainty could be little more then an illusion due to the fact that we are stuck on our single universal plane. In a multiverse there could be a great order of certainty where all probabilities happen. An omniscient observer would know everything because everything would be (gravitationally) connected. And if it was omnipresent, it would just be connected to infinite parts of itself; it would be in a superposition. Also, considering the double slit experiment, which suggests is that nothing is real until it has been observed, an omniscient observer would justify this quite logically and nicely wouldn't you say? Now I'm not saying that this thing would have "created" the multiverse; perhaps the multiverse has just always existed (validating infinity); or perhaps the multiverse was instantiated by physics completely unknown to us, and this thing just consciously evolved as the multiverse became more complex; infinity here would be relative and the continuing process of the expanding multiverse. When I say continuing process, think of numbers. They start a zero and go on and on, into infinity - infinity being the continuing process. If you start rolling back origins you're eventually going to conclude that something somewhere always has been and always will be. Whether that something is sentient or not is the question. Whether it is simply the non-stop colliding and reforming of matter and energy or there is an actual intelligence/consciousness (pattern) to it. Patterns are everywhere. But people say that our minds subsist on finding patterns. If that is so, then that, in and of itself, is patterned and ordered. Whether patterns are the cause of something intelligent or not; no one can really tell us the answer in a definite tone, but if they are then surely an orderly, probabilistic, multiverse might evolve some sort of god-like conscious entity. Even if that 'thing' does nothing but observe everything else. Perhaps to just maintain order to the multiverse? I hope that made sense... (?) Regards, Bass « Last Edit: 2007-08-15 23:32:35 by Bass » Report to moderator   Logged Hermit Archon Posts: 4287 Reputation: 8.94 Rate Hermit Prime example of a practically perfect person Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #27 on: 2007-08-16 10:23:38 » Congratulations on the study. Keep at it. As for your attempt to wriggle around some of the god-thingie-swatters above, I've used some limited time to address them simply and conclusively. Please attempt to use your new found information usefully. Consider the primary challenge to the class of speculation you engaged in here to be the one question you have not approached. That being why you think a god-thingie should be required at all. [Hermit 0] 1) The speed of light [Hermit 0] Which would tend to prevent Bass' monster from being aware of anything, and as it takes energy to send a signal a distance, its first thought would result in the immediate extraction of all the energy in the Universe to propagate information between its infinite bits. [Bass 1] But what about the EPR Paradox? Something here takes place at faster than light speeds and, as far as I have read, has been proven by experimentation; thus violating classical physics. As far as I know the effect between particles here is instantaneous with the time interval at zero. So, at the quantum scale, particles could communicate at faster than light (instantaneous) speeds, thus making omniscience a possibility between vast scales. In this sense it really would be the little things that count (since they make up everything). Perhaps, due to gravitons (which are mass-less and thus able to travel at faster then light speeds), everything is aware, and thus 'connected' to everything else, since everything in the universe is gravitationally aware of everything else. And if the universe expanded from a single point (a singularity in the big bang) then this would be logically consistent, no? [Hermit 2] It takes vast amounts of energy to instantiate and send tangled particles any distance at all. Tangled particles don't communicate, they are aspects of the same particle although space-time separated. Tangled particles take time to get from point A to point B, and the only possible "communications" using them requires the evaporation of the particle. As tangles particles evaporate and instantiate spontaneously, "communications" are always unreliable and so require a continuous stream of particles. Unfortunately particles do have mass and are limited to travel at small fractions of c. Because useful tangled particles travel equal distances from the source, the source has to located midpoint between source and destination. Thus for your particle God to be viable the Universe would need to be permeated with entangled particles. But in that case it would be impossible to tell which tangled particles were associated and thus communications would be impossible due to "particle noise", indeed, the Bell experiments would have been impossible for the same reason. [Hermit 2] Which is the "real" kicker, the Universe in our locality is not permeated with entangled particles and thus the particle dependent god omnipresent God could not exist in our neighborhood, and thus is not omnipresent and thus is not a god. QED. [Hermit 0] 2) The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem and thermodynamics [Hermit 0] To know everything about the Universe, Bass' monster would need to be aware of these molecular motions. Unfortunately, double the material of the Universe would need to be available to store the state at one point, so this poor creature would effectively be pre-amnesic unless it limited or abstracted the amount of information stored. In which case it would not be omniscient or even prescient. It would also suffer from memory overload almost irrespective of the degree of compression used. [Bass 1] But what if there are an infinite number of regions of space the same size as our observable universe - an infinite number of (parallel) universes, that is. An infinite set (which must contain, among other things, an infinite number of identical copies of us, much less then the radius of an atom away) resulting in an open multiverse? [Bass 1] An infinite open multiverse sounds to me like more then enough material to store the state at any one point. [Hermit 2] An infinite multiverse is not impossible, but neither is it even theoretically possible at this point. If it  exists, bidirectional communication between aspects of it is not possible or by definition they would become mutually inclusive. Speculation on open multiverses is dependent on an aspect of Hawking radiation. If that is proven/detected then an open multiverse is a theoretical implication. But your unfounded speculation (as previously noted, always invalid) misses the point that assuming that a god thingie could communicate data to use some aspects of a multiverse for storage, then most aspects of the multiverse could not contain the god thingie. Asserting that the god thingie permeats all aspects of your speculated multiverse also implies an instantaneous explosion of an infinite volume god thingie data to store - and you are right back against Nyquist-Shannon. Thus we already know that the God thingie doesn't permeate all aspects of the speculated multiverse and so, unless you can show cause why some aspects of the multiverse have god-thingies while others do not, equivalency requires us to conclude that god thingies do not permeate any aspect of the multiverse. Q.E.D. [Hermit 0] 3) The Heisenberg uncertainty principle [Hermit 0] This says that no only can we not predict, and of course, without predictive ability, we can't act effectively, but we can't even establish all the information about what has happened.  This implies that Bass' monster cannot be aware of even a fraction of what happens in the Universe, and depending on how much it knows, its ability to act on the information would be severely constrained. [Bass 1] Yeah ok, but if a multiverse is probabilistic in nature then everything can happen. If there were an omniscient observer then it wouldn't need to predict, it would simply know given that all possibilities take place. What we consider uncertainty could be little more then an illusion due to the fact that we are stuck on our single universal plane. In a multiverse there could be a great order of certainty where all probabilities happen. An omniscient observer would know everything because everything would be (gravitationally) connected. And if it was omnipresent, it would just be connected to infinite parts of itself; it would be in a superposition. [Hermit 2] But it also implies that in some aspects of the speculated multiverse that nothing will happen. And there is nothing to differentiate between these aspects. Thus the god thingie cannot say in which multiverse things will or won't occur, or when things will occur and this differentiation being required for knowledge to exist, knows nothing. Is a god thingie that knows nothing and thus can influence nothing, any different  from a god thingie that doesn't exist? I would say not. So if this speculation of yours is correct, then you have made god thingies irrelevant. Q.E.D. [Bass 1] Also, considering the double slit experiment, which suggests is that nothing is real until it has been observed, an omniscient observer would justify this quite logically and nicely wouldn't you say? [Hermit 2] Not at all, because if this were the case, there would be no uncertainty. Heisenberg would be violated and the Universe would evaporate or Heisenberg wouldn't hold and the Universe would be a very different place. So our current observable Universe proves that this speculation is invalid. Q.E.D. [Bass 1] Now I'm not saying that this thing would have "created" the multiverse; perhaps the multiverse has just always existed (validating infinity); or perhaps the multiverse was instantiated by physics completely unknown to us, and this thing just consciously evolved as the multiverse became more complex; infinity here would be relative and the continuing process of the expanding multiverse. When I say continuing process, think of numbers. They start a zero and go on and on, into infinity - infinity being the continuing process. [Bass 1] If you start rolling back origins you're eventually going to conclude that something somewhere always has been and always will be [Hermit: My emphasis]. Whether that something is sentient or not is the question. Whether it is simply the non-stop colliding and reforming of matter and energy or there is an actual intelligence/consciousness (pattern) to it. [Hermit 2] I'm don't conclude anything of the sort. The evidence reflects that our Universe instantiated in a "Big Bang." Thus space-time was instantiated in the "Big Bang." Prior to time being instantiated, I can't make conclusions which are time related. So the idea "always has been and always will be" which presupposes a time element is invalid. I try to avoid drawing invalid conclusions. [Bass 1] Patterns are everywhere. But people say that our minds subsist on finding patterns. If that is so, then that, in and of itself, is patterned and ordered. Whether patterns are the cause of something intelligent or not; no one can really tell us the answer in a definite tone, but if they are then surely an orderly, probabilistic, multiverse might evolve some sort of god-like conscious entity. Even if that 'thing' does nothing but observe everything else. Perhaps to just maintain order to the multiverse? [Hermit 2] WTF? Arguing from conclusions? So far we still don't have the need for a "god-like conscious entity" and as I have repeatedly shown the existence of such a speculated god-thingie would contravene current physics. [Bass 1] I hope that made sense... (?) [Hermit 2] I'm afraid not. Hermit Report to moderator   Logged With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999 Bass Magister Posts: 196 Reputation: 6.06 Rate Bass I'm a llama! Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #28 on: 2007-08-19 23:23:11 » Quote from: Hermit on 2007-08-16 10:23:38    Congratulations on the study. Keep at it. Thanks. Its all still little mind boggleing, and I won't pretend that I understand it all, but it is very interesting. Quote from: Hermit on 2007-08-16 10:23:38    Consider the primary challenge to the class of speculation you engaged in here to be the one question you have not approached. That being why you think a god-thingie should be required at all. Well not a requirement, but more of an evolutionary-conscious process of the multiverse itself. I mean we wern't required, but we still evolved. Thats where I was heading anyway. But apart from that (as with most 'believers' I suspect) the genesis of our universe is also still something that science hasn't been able to satisfyingly explain to me. I mean, I think that saying "before", when applying it to our universe is a valid question; perhaps not relativly valid, but valid none the less. And apart from mathematical suggestion (like M-theory) there is no evidence of "what was" before the theoretical bang (except perhaps dark matter/energy). But still, I find these types of questions important when trying to establish "where it all came from". If there was no 'creation' then surely there much be an infinate and evolutionary process of some kind regarding vacuum energy. But infinity (much like many religious 'gods') doesn't make sense to me. It should be able to be logically applied, but instead I just find it to be illogical, and something which has driven prominent mathematicians mad in the past. When I've grasped a better understanding of some of the things you've replied to me here with (which I appreciate by the way), perhaps I will come back to this if I find or think of something. But, for the time being, and science being a continuous process, I think (based on the science you've provided and as far as I can understand it) that God as a term is logically inaccurate; given that omniscience, and thus omnipotence and 'perfect', are seemingly impossible. Deity may be a better word to describe such a hypothetical creature instead of 'god'; the difference being that one is limited (deity) while the other is not (god). I think someone here mentioned that difference before, but I can't remember who... But I do have a final question here for you Hermit. That being, do you think/weyken a "god" (an omniscient, ominpotent, omnipresent and perfect being/entity (all individual "omni-categories" would be required)) to be existentially and completely impossible. I myself would like to say yes, but I fear that such a question could never be proven 100% conclusively. Regards, Bass Report to moderator   Logged Hermit Archon Posts: 4287 Reputation: 8.94 Rate Hermit Prime example of a practically perfect person Re:Atheistic Faith? « Reply #29 on: 2007-08-20 01:52:55 » [Bass] That being, do you think/weyken a "god" (an omniscient, ominpotent, omnipresent and perfect being/entity (all individual "omni-categories" would be required)) to be existentially and completely impossible. I myself would like to say yes, but I fear that such a question could never be proven 100% conclusively. [Hermit] I have repeatedly dealt with each category - including "perfection" with its implication of paralysis - and concluded that they are not possible in this Universe except as imaginary attributes. I have dealt with the impossibility of extra-Universal interaction without refining the Universe. At this point you can relax. The answer is completely certain. Which delights me, as it means that the nasty god-thingies of the Judeo-Christian-Islamics are not possible except as artifacts of diseased minds. Notice that there may yet be thingies some people will regards as gods out there somewhere. The Universe is a big place. But even if there are such things out there, they can't have the "omni-characteristics." [Hermit] As for "before the big bang" we have a process that continues to happen - instantiation and evaporation - that has proved quite sufficient to develop theories as to how it could have happened. So we have a small number of theories compatible with what we think may have been the case until Planck time, and which are compatible with what we know of the Universe today. Against that, you are waving a smelly rag saying "maybe this is a pre-existing uncaused god thingie that triggered it all," but as I have shown, such a thingie couldn't interact meaningfully with this Universe. And as I have asked before, what is the difference between an undetectable god-thingie that can't affect us, and no god-thingie at all? Hermit Report to moderator   Logged With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999 Pages: 1 [2]   Jump to:Please select a destination: ----------------------------- General ----------------------------- =>Announcements =>Evolution and Memetics =>FAQ =>Church Doctrine =>Science & Technology =>Society & Culture =>Arts & Entertainment =>Philosophy & Religion =>Humor & Satire =>Creative Endeavors =>Serious Business =>Virian Book Club =>Second Life =>Free For All =>Infections =>Suggestion Box =>Test Area ----------------------------- Mailing List ----------------------------- =>Virus 2006 =>Virus 2005 =>Virus 2004 =>Virus 2003

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