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Thank you for your reply!

It is fascinating that you say I have made an assumption when I say that "matter in all its motions" cannot address mathematical questions and yet you seem to accept that matter has not yet been created or detected in laboratory experiment.

Ordinary matter in the standard model is presumed to be the Higgs field/boson which is yet undetected. Only ordinary matter meets the needs of "matter in all its motions" presumptions.

The indirect effects of the Higgs (or whatever it might be) include the connection of the mass of the W boson to those of the quarks. The top quark, with a large mass, has a detectable impact on the W whose magnitude of impact depends on the (yet unobserved) Higgs. Without it, the W’s mass would be significantly lower.

But even if we find the Higgs, all the mysteries are not solved. Whereas the Standard Model would be self-consistent, it would make the Higgs mass very large whereas the indirect evidence is that it is not large. The Standard Model itself would still have no particles to explain dark matter or dark energy – it would only address ordinary matter, the 5% of the critical density of the universe.

Hence, much of physics already is looking at the standard model as a component of a more encompassing theory, supersymmetry. The remaining 70% of critical density is dark energy which appears to be accelerating the universe but cannot be studied in laboratory conditions (positive gravity).

Thus, the state-of-the-art theories involving matter are based on geometries whether supersymmetry, string theory or other dimensionality. IOW, at the root matter is a manifestation of geometry. That was also Einstein's instinct and dream - to transmute the base wood of matter to the pure marble of geometry.

me: The golden key is that the void in which "all that there is" began (regardless of physical cosmology) - has no space, no time, no energy, no matter, no mathematical structures, no logic, no physical laws, no physical constants.

you: And your evidence for this is?

Briefly, that there is always a beginning of real space and real time regardless of cosmology.

The only way to avoid the void is to prove up an infinite past. From my post on another thread:

Few cosmologies these days allow for an infinite past in our universe simply because the measurement of the CMB back in the 1960’s indicates the universe (space/time) is expanding and therefore it had a ‘real’ beginning. Einstein’s theory of relativity along with observations in astronomy suggested that the universe is expanding much to his chagrin. His belief in an infinite universe became a prejudice to his own thinking and thus Einstein proposed a ‘cosmological constant’ to avoid the consequences of his own theories. He later called his kluging of the numbers his greatest mistake.

Many other scientists were disturbed by the implication of a beginning and did some kluging of their own. In 1927, Georges Lemaître suggested that the expansion had stalled and resumed at various points due to gravity. At the time, Arthur Eddington was past his peak and already formulating ideas which seemed “kluged” to fit his own concept of the way things ought to be. For instance, he sought to unify quantum mechanics with relativity and gravity by what seemed to be a numerological analysis of fundamental constants. Also around the same time he disputed Subrahmanyan Chandrasehar’s model of gravitational collapse of stars/black holes suggesting that the collapse would be stopped. Of course, Chandrasehar was proven right and won a Nobel prize for this work.

And concerning cosmology, Eddington likewise resisted a beginning by stretching Lemaître’s theory to infinity. Both theories were disproven in the 1970’s by Vahe Petrosian who showed that a hesitating universe would confine galaxies and quasars to certain spatial limits which observations show have been exceeded. Moreover, further analysis shows that quasi-static periods over a trillion years would guarantee the formation of galaxies followed by a near immediate collapse of the universe to its original singularity.

Thus the past eternal models for a unique universe died. But the theological implications were not lost – because a beginning requires an uncaused cause, i.e. God.

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Jastrow, R. 1978. God and the Astronomers. New York, W.W. Norton, p. 116.

Even today, cosmologists struggle to propose theories which do not have a beginning. But to do this they turn to the possibility of multiverses and geometry (space/time) which must also be physically pre-existing and thus must also have a beginning. There are two basic types: chaotic inflation (Andre Linde) and ekpyrotic or cyclic universes (Steinhardt, Turok, Ovrut, et al).

Linde famously concludes that a universe can be created in a laboratory (chaotic inflation) with a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter which would create a small chunck of vacuum (negative energy of the gravitational field) which would blow up to the galaxies we observe. It would however usually not be noticeable since the new universe would curve into itself making it about the size of an elementary particle. [Holt, Jim “The Big Lab Experiment” Slate May 19, 2004]

In sum, the Linde theory proposes that the Planck size region which expanded (quantum fluctuation) to our universe was merely a part of some larger pre-existing region of space/time. The presumption is that there would be no beginning of this process and no end thus allowing for an infinite past.

But of a truth the multiverse only moves the goalpost by regression to an undetermined beginning – not infinity - because the model requires the pre-existence of space/time itself which was likewise made. Physical causality is a fatal flaw to theories which rely on pre-existing geometries.

The ekpyrotic model suggests that this universe came about from the collision of 2 pre-existing three-dimensional branes in a space with an extra (fourth) hidden spatial dimension. Again, the snag is that the dimensions (geometry) must be pre-existing. There is also the presumption of pre-existing physical laws including causality itself.

The ekpyrotic model led to the cyclic universe model which suggests the universe (space) will expand and then crunch back and expand again but time marches on. It is considered a ‘weakness’ in the theory that there had to be a beginning of time.

The issue of a beginning is theology and philosophy as well as science since it leaves one wondering why there is something rather than nothing and how anything can emerge from nothing at all. Those questions remain regardless of cosmology.

In the theological sense, one may also wonder how God could exist in nothingness – timelessness and spacelessness. Here we can turn to mathematics to grasp a concept that might help: the number zero v null.

One could meditate about a line of all possible numbers. Zero would be at the center. Negative numbers would proceed in one direction –1, -2, -3 on to infinity. Positive numbers would proceed in the other direction 1, 2, 3 on to infinity. But if one were to reverse direction by decimal extensions counting from 1 and –1 towards zero, reducing by half (or any percentage less than 100) each time - the number would continually be smaller but the process would never arrive at zero.

The same may be said of decimal extensions in other scenarios (such as the extension of 1/3) but zero is unique because it serves as a placemarker, e.g. 201 means there are no tens. Not that “tens” don’t exist, but for this particular number there are no tens.

But null is much more than a placemarker – it is more like the zero we can identify but not approach. To use the 201 example, if we were to state 2_1 we would be saying that tens do not exist at all.

With regard to physical reality, null is infinite non-existence – empty, void. This is the context of a beginning, of Creation – not merely zero spatial and/or temporal dimensions but null itself – no physical laws, no physical constants, no causality, no energy/matter, no physical object or event. Consequently, no phenomenon, no mathematics, no logic, no reason, no qualia, no autonomy, no language, no universals. When everything else is removed, at null, “all that there is” is God Himself – thus the beginning and existence is an act of His will.

Jewish mystics use a Hebrew term for this state to describe God as creator: Ayn Sof. The term basically means “no-thing” - One without end from which all being emerges and into which all being dissolves.

In Athens, Paul used their own Greek philosophy/poetry to convey the meaning for Christians:

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. – Acts 17:27-28

Thus the infinity of math and the infinity of physics must be understood in context:

Because we are able to assign a symbol to represent ‘infinity’ and manipulate such a symbol according to specific rules, one might assume that corresponding infinite entities (e.g. particles or universes) exist. But the actual (i.e. realized in contrast to potential or conceptual) physical (in contrast to mathematical) infinite has been criticized vehemently being not constructible, implying contradictions, etc. (cf. Hilbert 1964, p. 136-151, Spitzer 2000, Ellis & Kirchner 2004, ch 5). If this were correct it should also apply to an infinite past.

Vaas, Rudiger Time before Time