Posted on 08/20/2005 5:45:53 PM PDT by Nicholas Conradin
Not exactly, if you teach that nothing created the universe... you are just are, well for lack of a better term... stupid.
Science dictates that NOTHING acts without being acted upon by other forces... so for the universe to exist, something must have acted upon it to create it.
No matter how far science goes back into the create, or even precreation of our universe in its current form.. you have to keep going back to what moved that before that.... and eventually you wind up with SOMETHING from NOTHING.. and as science tells us, something cannot come from nothing.
So the only thing that can create something from nothing is the Almighty. He is the first mover, and the end game... or to quote his own word, the Alpha and the Omega.
Science will never answer the first mover problem, it can't.
Please ping me the next time you offer such a grand post!
Personally, I find all the cosmologies interesting to read - but the one which has captured my attention is Tegmark's Level IV mostly because it is the only "closed" model attributing all existents "in" space/time to mathematical structures "beyond" space/time.
Yes, ma'am.
Hello 2ndreconmarine! Sorry to be so tardy, but I’ve been packing for a trip. We’re going on vacation, down to Cape Cod, and will be leaving later today. I’ll be offline until late in the day Sept. 10th. (Sigh. ) Thank you so much for your elegant summary of the present “cosmological issue” from the scientific standpoint, and your conjecture at the end.
Thank you LeftCoastNeoCon for proposing this topic (see above italics). A 1 in 10123 probability that a life-producing and -sustaining Universe could have arisen by chance is, as you say, improbable “but still not impossible.” While I agree with this statement, I understand that some mathematicians regard a probability of 1 in 1055 as indicating the “borderline” of the effectively impossible.
I really don’t understand why so many multiverse theories have been advanced in recent times. Not one of them obviates the necessity of a beginning, of a First Cause. As you say, 2RM, the universe is asymmetric, “having a definite starting point but no definite end.” Moreover, it appears an infinite regression of causes cannot account for the rise of life and conscousness. There is something seemingly purposeful about the evolution of the universe, as if from its beginning it is moving toward a final cause, what Aristotle called peras:
The final cause is an end which is not for the sake of anything else, but for the sake of which everything is. So if there is to be a last term of this kind, the process will not be infinite; and if there is no such term there will be no final cause. Those who maintain an infinite series do not realize that they are destroying the very nature of the Good, although no one would try to do anything if he were not likely to reach some limit (peras); nor would there be reason in the world (nous), for the reasonable man always acts for the sake of an end — which is a limit.In other words the First and Final Causes are intimately related to each other, what HamiltonJay called the Alpha and the Omega. This, of course, is one of the names of the Son of God, a/k/a the Word of the Beginning. Aristotle believed reason is embedded in the constitution of being, and thus thought the prima causa, the First Cause, a/k/a the Unmoved Mover, must be an intelligent cause, just as the final cause is a “reasonable” or rational one. Thus following Aristotle, Eric Voegelin would write: “A universe which contains intelligent beings cannot originate with a prima causa that is less than intelligent.”
2RM, you wrote: “Personally, I don’t believe in the multiverse and I don't believe that this particular universe was created just by happenstance. The reason is my personal faith and also my observation that God’s creation is unbelievably economical and elegant. I just don't see lots of universe where the constants are wrong just to get one that is right.”
Oh, I so agree with you! The natural universe – God’s creation -- is “economical and elegant,” even parsimonious. I can’t imagine that quality can have been the result of trial and error. I doubt such a universe could have been produced by purely contingent causes, given an infinity of time. Our universe did not have an infinite past, it had a beginning in time some 14-15 billion years ago.
But that does not mean that God could not have chosen to work as you suggest in your final conjecture:
In the final analysis I believe, as a matter of faith, that the 10^123 argument indicates this universe was created by God, but as a scientist I know this is not proof. …As you say, “Now, that would be some creation!” Indeed. And also, IMO that would be “some God!”OTOH. I find that God's creation of evolution to create life a much more subtle, intricate, and elegant creation than that postulated by either ID or creationism. IT is much more beautiful. Perhaps because it is more difficult to design the system that produces the life than to just design the life itself. Perhaps, God did create the multiverse, and He used cosmic evolution to find the right physics constants to produce the evolutionary system that then produced life.
BTW, I am not convinced that ID necessarily means “special creation” by a God who constantly intervenes in His creation to produce life forms, etc. As you seemed to suggest, a powerful Logos in the beginning working towards a final cause could obviate the need for any divine “fine-tuning.”
OTOH, the speeding up, then slowing down, and then speeding up again of the cosmic expansion may be due to an “intervention” mediated by/through “a higher dimensional fabric.” (Sir Isaac Newton’s sensorium Dei?)
I do believe that God used evolution as a main tool of realizing His creation in space/time. Whether this includes an evolution of multiverses also, who can say? It would seem we would not be able to observe such multiverses anyway. So perhaps for all practical purposes, this issue is moot.
But if God wanted them, they’d be there! :^)
I really must run and finish packing. I’m sorry I won’t be able to continue with this conversation for a while. My timing is terrible here; for this is a wonderful conversation that you and LeftCoastNeoCon have started.
And thank you again, 2ndreconmarine, for your simply excellent essay/post. It’s a definite “keeper” – I’ve put it on the “Links” list on my personal page, and also on my browser’s “Favorites List.” Plus I have it in hard copy, to read again over my vacation. Thank you so much!!!
IOW, the only way science had to write God out of the picture was to appeal to infinity of chance. The plentitude argument requires that anything that could happen, did.
Since the beginning was so strongly established, the meaning had to be reduced by appealing to a multiplicity of prior universes or prior geometry (ekpyrotic or brane theories). IMHO, that is the main reason for multi-verse theories.
But despite all these efforts, there can be no infinity past because all prior universes require geometry as well. Even cyclic universes require geometry (the cyclic model of Steinhardt allows for infinity future but a beginning of real time). Likewise, the imaginary time model of Hawking posits a boundaryless universe, but nevertheless a beginning of real time.
A less theologically "motivated" group of theories involve Everett's multi-worlds (and the many subsequent theories based on his speculations, e.g. multi-histories and such). His was not focused on geometry, especially time, but rather on superposition, suggesting that Schrodinger’s cat is actually both alive and dead. The issue more correctly “goes to” the lack of a bridge in physics between the quantum and classic worlds. That problem remains.
The third type – the one which is the real “gotcha” that betty boop addresses here – is the cause of physical causality.
Virtually all cosmologies (except perhaps Tegmark) begin with a presupposition of pre-existing physical causality. That presumption biases the conclusion and is therefore a poison pill, IMHO.
The context of a beginning is a not merely a vacuum, it is a complete void, a true chaos: no geometry, no space, no time, no energy, no matter, no physical causality. Order cannot arise from such chaos in an unguided system. The obvious conclusion is that God exists.
Nice to see you active again. I like reading your posts.
Hi, csense! Good to see you, too! And thank you so much for the encouragements.
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