Aw come on, 21stCenturion, do you mean to suggest that you do have the ability to "comprehend the concept of 'infinity'?" On the possibility that you might so comprehend (though that certainly seems doubtful to me), I suspect "infinity" in your sense would just be a stand-in for God.
You wrote:
... the Multi-verse addresses the notion that a single Universe is insufficient to contain all the possible components, events, information and whatever other stuff CAN POSSIBLY exist. This assumes that every possible event or outcome of the interaction of all possible combinations of matter, energy or whatever MUST somehow be permitted to occur, somehow, someplace, sometime.Just who is it that (seemingly) claims to know future events (at least in general if not in each and every particular) and all the details of what is needed "all possible combinations of matter, energy or whatever" because they "...MUST somehow be permitted to occur, somehow, someplace, sometime."
That person evidently has a most exalted, God-like view of things. Kinda reminds me of Laplace....
Tell me, why MUST "all possible combinations of matter, energy or whatever" be "instantiated?" According to what rule, what purpose? Just because this cite of yours (with whom you state you disagree) insists that they should i.e., insists that all possibilities eventually must manifest themselves, given enough time?
But of course, infinity doesn't really have so much to do with time as it does with number. It is a mathematical concept; and some physicists have complained that it is "unconstructible" in natural science.
I think what your cite may have in mind is "endless time." If time is endless, then anything that can happen, will happen. And the pièce de résistence is that if time is endless, then randomness might (in all probability) have a chance to "accidentally organize" itself into something actual. This is the thousand-monkeys-with-typewriters-shut-up-in-a-room-trying-to-compose-Shakespeare scenario.
Of course you don't need multiple universes to explain the manifold of the Universe. If there are other "universes," they would be embodied, integrated in some fashion into the ONE, indivisible Universe, the living Universe of God's Logos in the Beginning. JMHO.
You wrote:
Mans knowledge of God is merely the product of faith and the belief in some supernatural power that operates outside the realm of reason or the scope of mans intelligence. That is NOT knowledge, that is the denial that knowledge is possible.God is not "supernatural": He is not any kind of "natural." He is absolutely irreducible to your "measurements." He most definitely IS outside the realm of reason, and definitely beyond the scope of man's intelligence, individual, collective, historical.
As Saint Anselm said (in Proslogion):
O Lord, you are not only that than which a greater cannot be conceived, but you are also greater than what can be conceived.Anselm is thinking and reasoning along a line that perhaps you don't suspect exists:
Speak to my desirous soul what you are, other than what it has seen, that it may clearly see what it desires.For Anselm, the fides quarens intellectum the quest of faith seeking understanding, knowledge is not essentially epistemic; it is volitional. Anselm is drawn by the Love of God, which he fervently and ever faithfully returns.
In the end, I gather we disagree about this: You believe that faith and reason are mutually exclusive; I do not.
Rather I believe they are necessary complementarities. Truthful human knowledge requires the light of both.
But it's late, 21stCenturion, and I've run on long. It's time to say good night and sleep tight!
Since the 1960s forward measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation consistently agree that the universe is expanding. This means that space and time do not pre-exist but are created as the universe expands. It also means there was a beginning of real space and real time.
That was the most theological statement to ever come out of modern science (Jastrow) In the beginning, God created (Gen 1:1)
There is no infinite past. Steady state cosmology is dead as a doornail.
So of course physical cosmologists went into high gear trying to obviate God the Creator evidently because methodological naturalism cannot allow for Creator God.
But none of the theories cyclic, ekpyrotic, multi-verse, multi-world, imaginary time, etc. can avoid the problem that space and time do not pre-exist.
In the absence of time, events cannot occur.
Both are required for physical causation.
Also, the singularity of big bang cosmology is not nothing:
It is not nothing. It is a spatial point. A singularity is not nothing.
In ex nihilo Creation (beginning of space/time) - the dimensions are not merely zero, they are null, dimensions do not exist at all. There is no space and no time. Period.
There is no mathematical point, no volume, no content, no scalar quantities. Ex nihilo doesnt exist in relationship to anything else; there is no thing.
In an existing physical space, each point (e.g. particle) can be parameterized by a quantity such as mass. The parameter (e.g. a specific quantity within the range of possible quantities) is in effect another descriptor or quasi-dimension that uniquely identifies the point within the space.
Moreover, if the quantity of the parameter changes for a point, then a time dimension is invoked. For example, at one moment the point value is 0 and the next it is 1.
Wave propagation (e.g. big bang, inflation) cannot occur in null dimensions nor can it occur in zero spatial dimensions, a mathematical point; a dimension of time is required for any fluctuation in a parameter value at a point.
Moreover, wave propagation must also have a spatial/temporal relation from cause point to effect point, i.e. physical causation.
For instance 0 at point nt causes 1 at point n+1t+1 which causes "0" at point n+1t+2 etc..
Obviously, physical wave propagation (e.g. big bang/inflationary model) cannot precede space/time and physical causality.
And he realizes that only God, beyond space/time and physical causation, can be the uncaused cause of causation, the first cause, The Creator of the beginning.
Space, time and physical causation are not properties of God the Creator. They are properties of the Creation. Only God is uncaused.
Order cannot arise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period. There are always guides to the system whether one is using chaos theory, self-organizing complexity, cellular automata or whatever to analyze complexification, entropy and order.
Indeed, to me, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (Wigner) is Gods copyright notice on the cosmos.
Logos is the Greek word which is translated Word in the following passage. It is also the root for the word Logic:
I wrote —
I think the Multi-verse conjecture is a bogus exercise as there is NO basis for proliferating Universes in order to overcome a purely human inability to comprehend the concept of infinity.
You replied —
Aw come on, 21stCenturion, do you mean to suggest that you do have the ability to “comprehend the concept of ‘infinity’?” On the possibility that you might so comprehend (though that certainly seems doubtful to me), I suspect “infinity” in your sense would just be a stand-in for God.
Seems I didn’t actually say anything that resembles your conclusions. I DO comprehend the definition of ‘infinity’ — that is no great accomplishment, I think. Whether I can, in my limited mind, grasp the significance or meaning of an expression like ‘an infinite number of Universes’ is questionable. I did NOT assert possession of such an insight.
Further, ‘infinity’ in ‘my’ sense has to do with an exercise in counting, nothing more. Nowhere did I imply some being / existence / personality / whatever that could reasonably be construed as ‘God’. That presumption originates with you.
You wrote —
Just who is it that (seemingly) claims to know future events (at least in general if not in each and every particular) and all the details of what is needed “all possible combinations of matter, energy or whatever” because they “...MUST somehow be permitted to occur, somehow, someplace, sometime.”
That person evidently has a most exalted, God-like view of things. Kinda reminds me of Laplace....
Laplace ? I assume you refer to “Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là” ( I did not need this hypothesis then ) ? I never went there, except, I suppose, to the extent that I made no appeal to the supernatural at any time to justify or explain myself.
I never asserted ‘an exalted God-like view of things’, as you so cheerfully provided me with. I humbly view myself as a bit too modest to claim such an exalted opinion or myself or my ‘notions’ as stated herein.
You conclude —
In the end, I gather we disagree about this: You believe that faith and reason are mutually exclusive; I do not.
Rather I believe they are necessary complementarities. Truthful human knowledge requires the light of both.
NOT my words, you’ll quickly realize —
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1
For once, you nailed me. I absolutely DO believe that faith and reason are absolutely incompatible — mutually exclusive, to use your terms. To that extent, you’re right, our ‘world views’ ARE ‘mutually incompatible’.
In my chosen profession ( engineering ) we would rightfully condemn someone who filters / modifies / corrupts data in order to fit a predetermined conclusion. It’s certainly NOT honest; it doesn’t change the underlying reality; and the results must, inevitably, produce failure. Passing reality through a lens of ‘faith’ and claiming the results are equivalent to the product of ‘reason’ looks a lot like that.
One Man’s Opinion
21stCenturion
I kinda like the way Jesus put it:
"Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but My Words shall never pass away."
Sounds rather independent of any known Universe to me.
Cheers!