Creation ex nihilo

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Change cannot be more fundamental because change cannot exist without motion preceding it.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I don't follow your reasoning behind this. If the universe is discrete in space and time, as I believe it is, you could even argue that motion doesn't exist; that change is all there really is.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The causality principle, which follows from logic alone (because any violation is a type of miracle), states that every effect has a proximate, antecedent cause. Are you proposing an effect without a cause?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
No, I'm proposing that the initial state of the universe is not an effect at all. An effect requires time antecedent to it and since there was no time before the initial state, in fact there was no "before" at all, it is not an effect.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I asked you to describe that first instant. I was really asking for the initial cause-effect sequence because your words seem vague on this critical point.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
State #2 follows state #1. This is the initial cause-effect sequence. There is no before state #1 so state #1 is only a cause, not an effect.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Specifically, it makes no sense that past time is finite but did not have a beginning. Those two concepts are opposites and, much like a square circle, cannot co-exist. If the “measure of (total elapsed) change” is zero, the following instant is the first. If there was no first instant, then the measure of total elapsed time is infinite. Don’t play word games. Which is it?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I never said that time didn't have a beginning. I said that it wasn't created. There was a first instant as described above.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">You are only in logical trouble here because you reject the label “miracle”. Do you have a reason to resist calling miracles by their customary name, other than that it then becomes a religious tenet rather than a scientific thesis?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I resist the term miracle because the definition you gave me, "an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God", is not a correct description of the event in question.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">A Freudian slip? Tell me more about this “first amount of time” that there is nothing before. Did it contain motion or non-motion?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
How is this a slip of any kind? I never denied there was a first moment in time. The first moment in time was a change from state #1 to state #2. It's more of a semantic issue if you want to call it motion or not. As I mentioned above, I do not believe in continuous motion or any kind of continuity for that matter. I believe that both time and space are discrete, i.e. there is a smallest unit for both space and time that is not dividable into smaller units.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">However, space and time are concepts, not material, tangible entities. So let’s focus on “all things existing in the universe”. You seem to agree they must have been created or come from something else. So which is it, and how do you avoid creation from nothing (a miracle) for all that substance?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I'll retract my statement that all things existing in the universe must come from something else. This is not true for all things existing in state #1 since there was no time before it.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">In Meta Science, time and space are independent dimensions and are always separate. The idea of time and space being interchangeable came from special relativity, which has now been falsified in favor of Lorentzian relativity. Motion and potential can affect clocks, but nothing affects time (the measure of change).<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I'm not sure I understand this. Are you saying that time can exist without space? I don't believe that space and time are interchangeable. What I do believe is that time is a measurement of change in space. I'm not sure if our opinions differ on this or if we just described it differently.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I take it then that you deny the existence of integers because that is a set infinite in both directions.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I do deny the physical existence of integers. It is only a mathematical concept. The set of integers exists only as a potential infinite set. You could never write down all the integers in the set. I have no problem with potential infinities, only actual infinities.

The set of integers is a potential infinity. An eternal universe is an actual infinity. There is a big difference there.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />Would you care to describe a First Instant that does not require any miracles?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">If you were using the term "known universe" instead of "universe", I wouldn't debate you on this subject with a ten foot pole. I don't know enough about it. But, what I'm talking about is what we <b>don't know </b>, not what we know.

I was watching the remake of "12 Angry Men" yesterday, where Jack Lemmon plays the part of the lone dissenter who voted "not-guilty". I was amazed at how many times, when grilled by the other eleven men who voted "guilty" he answered, "I don't know" and "it's possible."

The fact that I don't know what happened in that first instant that precludes it from being a miracle, doesn't mean it isn't possible that something happened that wasn't a miracle. We just don't know what it is. For instance, something could have happened that caused matter and energy to come pouring into our known universe from outside our known universe, starting at a point in space and expanding rapidly as the big bang predicts. None of our laws may necessarily apply to the "unknown universe", although it's also possible that they do, and that the real problem is understanding how they interface. <blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">We can reason that such an origin is impossible without a miracle because it requires an uncaused effect at the outset.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Not if we think in terms of a known and unknown universe, in which case Fopp's suggestion that there would be a State #1 in our universe that was the first cause of the known universe, but not the first effect, is a valid one. It (State #1) could be the last effect of the unknown universe that caused it though.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Despite the frequent use of “It’s a miracle!” in lay dialogue, the strict definition is an act of God, something impossible without a Supreme Being. Whether you agree with that or have your own definition, that is the definition my dialogue assumed.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I agree with the definition in our normal lives, I just don't necessarily agree it would pertain to the moment of the big bang. <blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">But that denies the whole field of logic, the only field that reaches conclusions having certainty as opposed to conclusions that merely have some probability (however large) of being correct.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Again, I don't deny the whole field of logic. Everything you say is true, when thinking in terms of the known universe. But when you consider the notion of an unknown universe or universes that can't be percieved by us, then the interface could quite possibly appear "illogical" to our senses, and not require Gods and miracles.

By the way, I didn't make this stuff up, I'm sure I read this somewhere sometime, along with the notion of the "vacuum fluctuation" (what ever happened to that theory?).
rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Fopp</i>
<br />I believe that both time and space are discrete, i.e. there is a smallest unit for both space and time that is not dividable into smaller units.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Good. This seems to explain your position best and pinpoint the core of our disagreement.

As I argued in my book "Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets", discrete space and discrete time both lead to unsolvable paradoxes of the Zeno type. The most damning of these, IMO, is that discrete time units means that the entire universe must be created ex nihilo in state #1, then be entirely de-created back into nothingness, then (after an unknown interval that might approach infinity) get recreated again in state #2, etc.

To my way of thinking, this is the ultimate in miracles, wherein every bit of space at every unit of time requires a separate miracle.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I resist the term miracle because the definition you gave me, "an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God", is not a correct description of the event in question.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">How so?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I do deny the physical existence of integers. It is only a mathematical concept. The set of integers exists only as a potential infinite set. You could never write down all the integers in the set. I have no problem with potential infinities, only actual infinities. The set of integers is a potential infinity. An eternal universe is an actual infinity. There is a big difference there.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Concepts exist too. Integers are no more or less a concept than time, so the existence of both is on equal footing.

We can't write down all the integers because our existence is too short. But there is no integer we cannot write or get to. So I don't agree that there is a difference (potential vs. actual) between the set of all integers and the ticks on my gedanken clock. The one-to-one correspondence I mentioned proves the equality of these two sets in the standard way for proving properties of infinities.

If you are interested in a better understanding of infinities, I highly recommend Gamov's "One, two, three... infinity". I understand the essence of your point, but IMO you have not applied it correctly. In Meta Science, we say that the quantity of substance is infinite, even though all forms (the things made of substance) are finite -- in both extent and duration. In that way, nothing physical can be infinite or eternal even though they exist in an infinite and eternal universe (a concept). But concepts exist too, even though they are not physical. -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />If you were using the term "known universe" instead of "universe", I wouldn't debate you on this subject with a ten foot pole.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Definitions, definitions, definitions. Otherwise we will always talk past one another and never have a meeting of minds.

My definition of universe is the standard astronomers' definition: "everything that exists". "Multiverses" is a science fiction concept, and is in point of fact undefined. The meaning is left to the reader's imagination. In any event, my definition covers any such unknowns that may exist but are inaccessible to observation by us for whatever reason -- the same as things that are too far away, to distant in time, or on too small or large a scale.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I just don't necessarily agree it ["miracle") would pertain to the moment of the big bang.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Syllogism:
Either the universe (everything that exists) had a beginning, or it didn't.
A beginning from nothing is a miracle by definition.
No beginning requires no miracle.

Where do you see room for a logical fallacy in that?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">the "vacuum fluctuation" (what ever happened to that theory?)<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">There are lots of science fiction concepts in science. Time travel, singularities such as "black holes" and string theory, and the Copenhagen interpretation in QM are among them.

"Vacuum fluctuations" do not mean "something from nothing". They mean something from the unknown, unobservable vacuum, which has vacuum energy and contains considerable substance, not the least of which is a light-carrying medium (elysium). The arguments I have been making allow for an infinity of unknowns in space, time, and scale, and are not affected by these areas of invincible ignorance. That is because logic is not limited by what can be observed. -|Tom|-

[rderosa] " ...if we think in terms of a known and unknown universe ... "

In Meta Model, and more generally in deep reality physics, the word universe refers to everything that exists. Not everything that we know exists, but everything. So the universe includes both the known component (commonly called the Known Universe) and any unknown componentss (sometimes called the Unknown Universe) that may exist.

As you say, there are things we don't know yet. In a universe that is infinite in the 5 known dimensions, there will always be things we don't know yet. There might be places in the universe where the laws of physics are different than the local laws of physics. And it is possible that what we now know as the visible or know universe began 13 billion years ago as the result of something that happened in one of those places.

If so, then at this time we do not know what came before, or why it led to what is now. But we do know that <u>something</u> came before. If not, then we must invoke a miracle.

===

We do not have to know, at this point in time, what that something was. But one of these days we wiil find out.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />My definition of universe is the standard astronomers' definition: "everything that exists". "Multiverses" is a science fiction concept, and is in point of fact undefined. ..... In any event, my definition covers any such unknowns that may exist but are inaccessible to observation by us for whatever reason ......Either the universe (everything that exists) had a beginning, or it didn't.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Ok, this just changes the form of the debate, but not the essential point I'm trying to make. Let me restate something. If we change the words "known" and "unknown" to "observable" and "unobservable" parts of the universe, and concentrate on the subject of the moment of the big bang, rather than "did the universe (everything that exists) have a beginning, or didn't it?" and we get closer to my point. Viewed this way, the universe (i.e., everything) could be infinite AND still produce the big bang which was not a miracle.

My original reason to enter this topic was because of your statement that the big bang would have to be a miracle because something was created from nothing. I'm merely pointing out that it's possible that isn't true.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Syllogism:
Either the universe (everything that exists) had a beginning, or it didn't.
A beginning from nothing is a miracle by definition.
No beginning requires no miracle.

Where do you see room for a logical fallacy in that?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I don't. My statement that the big bang doesn't have to be a miracle is not inconsistent with this. As to the question of whether or not the universe is infinite my answer is, "we don't know", but logically you're right.

In my opinion, in Science fiction there have been alot of good educated guesses or speculations about things we don't know all throughout modern times. Many guesses have been proven true.

rd