I started to compose this for our previous thread that was accidentally clobbered. This seems an appropriate place to insert it because the discussion has become quite similar.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Mac</i>
<br />I do find it amazing that you all find existence without ever having been created (in whatever form) absolutely amazing and very much against the "Reason" that you accuse me of for accepting creation ex nihilo via a process not yet understood.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I'd like to better understand your objection. We all agree that all physical things (forms) must always have a beginning and an end. That is what reason tells us, and is our experience with no exceptions. What is unclear is how you justify applying this to the set of all forms.
We all know that all integers are finite, but the set of all integers is not. The same is true for everything that is unbounded. So the mere fact that every single member of a set, without exception, is finite (or has finite duration) does not limit the entire set from being infinite (or eternal). Do we agree on that point?
To me, the key is that we never observe any form either coming into existence or passing out of existence. Instead, forms are assembled from other smaller forms, and forms decay or explode into other smaller forms. But every single bit of every form remains accounted for, with no creation <i>ex nihilo</i> or demise <i>ad nihil</i>. The universe contains so many forms that we would expect to see these processes operating today if they were possible; but we do not see them despite the fact that we do see the continual appearance of new forms and the continual loss of old ones.
Therefore, in the time span allotted to us, we observe that all forms are finite in duration, but the set of all forms shows no evolution one way or the other.
To account for this, there are two and only two logical possibilities: (1) creation of a vast, probably infinite amount of substance out of nothing in the past, with the ever-present threat of everything returning to nothing, perhaps suddenly, in the future; or (2) the past and future have the same assortment of finite-duration forms as the present, to eternity.
Because (1) requires a miracle or miracles, it is excluded from consideration in physics. Because (2) requires no miracles, it is the only logical option remaining to us. Understanding eternity as a concept appears to be no more logically difficult than understanding infinity as a concept. We need infinity to resolve Zeno's paradoxes, without which change would be impossible; and we need infinity because we cannot conceive of an end to space where nothing can ever go. By analogy, we need eternity to understand existence too.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">On the other hand the view that something has existed for eternity and hence never "came" into existence simply doesn't logically seem to provide any answer but merely casts aside any attempt to ever learn anything further about our origins.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This is incorrect because the fact that the set of all forms is eternal does not change the fact that all forms have finite duration. We are finite-duration forms, as are all forms. So we will continue to seek to learn our origins and history and place in the universe.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">It simply makes no sense to me to suggest something that is physically tangible was never created.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">We cannot think clearly if we use words with double or ambiguous meanings. Everything physically tangible is of finite duration, and we loosely speak of everything as having been "created" at some point. But when we use that mode of speaking, we do not mean creation <i>ex nihilo</i>, and we do not imply any miracle. We mean that everything physically tangible was "created" by assembly or disassembly from other forms. Every physically tangible form was created in that sense. In physics, nothing was ever created in the sense of a miracle, from nothing.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This question must go beyond forms. That is, I am addressing physical existence vs. any specific form of existence.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You know it is true for integers, so why can't it be true for forms? Every single integer, without exception, is finite. The set of all integers is infinite. The duration of every single form, without exception, is finite. But the duration of the set of all forms is infinite.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">N
>(+s)+(-s) (the latest revision of the origin formula); where "N" is "Nothingness",
> is bifurcating into, and +/- "s" are equal but opposite "something". This simple expression shows that creation ex nihilo can indeed occur without violating conservation. How that can happen is another matter. Mathematically it can.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">But that is precisely the point. Mathematics can do much more than is physically possible. In physics, no two real, tangible things can be combined to get a lesser real, tangible set of things, much less to get nothing. Every bit of the original is preserved in the combination.
You say your formula is mathematically possible. Let's consider if that is true. We might have five apples. We might then eat five apples, resulting in the set of apples going from five to zero. But the substance of the apples has not gone out of existence, but merely changed form. So the count of apples, a thing that can be positive or negative, has gone to zero (nothing). But the substance of the apples, a thing that cannot be negative, has not changed.
So that is the fallacy in your formula. The concept of "negative substance" (substance that is less than non-existent, but has negative existence) is not in fact possible in physical reality. Mass and substance are intrinsically positive quantities, unlike charge and forms, which may be negative. The arrow of time is an example with one foot in both camps. In mathematics, it is easy to change the arrow of time in equations to a negative. But that is never possible in physical reality because it would instantly violate causality, a form of miracle.
The same is true of your formula. As applied to substance or mass, it is allowed in math but not in physics because it violates causality, a form of miracle.
And that leaves us with existence being eternal, something no harder to grok (but no easier either) than Zeno's Paradoxes for the nature of motion or the infinity of space or scale. I think a certain amount of intuitive understanding of all these infinities is possible. But short of that, it is not possible to prove them logically wrong or contradictory; and they are the only possibility left standing that requires no miracles. -|Tom|-
