What, then, is your view regarding things such as pain and reason?
Do you believe that philosophical arguments are contrary to reason, and therefore reject them? Or do you reject philosophical arguments altogether?
Yes, that is what you conclude Smr.
But in doing so you have not abided by the terms and conditions you set for yourself. If I may remind youā¦
Reason requires that claims be accepted only when they are supported by sound empirical and observational evidence.
But if you are the one making these empirical observations, as you describe above, how can you avoid personal bias and subjectivity?
Surely the empirical observations you rely upon to claim that the universe had a beginning must come from outside of yourself, from a different and independent source than yourself?
Otherwise, where is the necessary objectivity in your own personal observations of the nature of reality?
Your personal observations fall short of the standard you set for this discussion.
Can you see the problem?
Iāve already commented on this Smr, but am happy to do so again.
If the cosmological theories that describe eternally-existing universes were irrational, unreasonable and contained flaws in logic, these errors would have been picked up when they were submitted for peer review.
But science quite happily entertains the theoretical notion of eternally-existing universes. Yesterday I even provided links to the three of them.
If this is so, then can you explain why objections like yours (the present moment could not have been reached) did not cause these theories to be rejected by the scientists peer reviewing them?
Thank you,
Walter.
But that does not preclude the possibility of the universe going through a cycle of iterations.
As I have been at pains to point out, our inability to observe the beginning of the universe prevents us from having true knowledge of what happened. All we can do therefore is to infer, deduce, suppose and speculate about it. Which means that an argument based upon personal observations of the universe as it is now can be no more than such speculation.
Nobody can extrapolate from what they see now to what they cannot see with any certainty. Yes, they can infer, deduce, suppose or speculate about what they cannot see. But such personal speculations lack objectivity and do not rise to the level of factuality and reliability.
Thank you,
Walter.
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That was post #23ā¦.
Time as we observe it is caused by the existence of the physical universe, we have no evidence it existed as we understand it prior to the point of origin of that universe, the big bang.
Sigh, this is only observed within the physical temporal universe. How many times will you repeat these premises without addressing our objections?
What does infinite existence mean without the temporal universe, explain this to me, and evidence any claims in your explanation.
How can something begin if time does not exist? Even accepting the limitations of language to explain the idea, you cannot know what existed prior to the big bang, again you are simply repeating earlier claims without addressing these objections.
That is not how atheism is defined, as has been explained by me over 70 posts ago.
Atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, it is not a claim or belief that no deity exists.
Evidence a creator, then evidence we have any obligation to it, you are using a variation of Pascalās wager, again a quick search of the site would reveal countless arguments debunking this.
You have presented only flawed arguments, and no objective evidence, so where is the intellectual mistake in withholding belief from your core claim?
It has been explained throughout this thread why the atheists here do not agree, simply repeating the arguments and claims wonāt change that?
None of which evidence a deity.
It had a point of origin, how does this evidence any deity, why have you not address the criticisms of your first cause arguments, you are simply paraphrasing parts of the objections without addressing what they mean for the assumptions you made in your first cause arugments?
You can claim that the universe has a point of origin, and that we donāt know what existed before, and then claim you can make assumptions about what existed before based on what we now observe, thatās absurd.
What has this question to do with my post? I asked you a question here:
Which ones, and again what has that to do with my question?
If they are flawed or fallacious then of course I donāt accept them, I have explained already that I donāt believe you can argue something into existence without any supporting objective evidence. As I said at the beginning replacing the deity in your arguments with an invisible pixie would not diminish the argument at all, so the inference should be pretty clear. This is the problem with using flawed first cause arguments, then simply assuming a deity was that cause without any objective evidence that any deity exists or objectively or nomologically possible.
Every cause we understand and can evidence is entirely natural, so positing a supernatural one is a clear false equivalence, do you see?
While claiming a deity can, this is just special pleading, that is fallacious reasoning.
To give you one example of why personal observation of the universe fails to be helpful in understanding the universe Smr, please look at this example.
In 2012 the Higgs boson was first observed by the Large Hadron Collider. While the Higgs field itself permeates the entire universe a boson particle of that field can only be brought into existence in an extremely hot, high-energy environment. Just what the LHC was designed to create.
So, one person observing the universe on their own would never be able to discover something like the Higgs boson by themselves. That discovery required the joint enterprise of thousands of scientists from all continents working for decades and a hell of a lot of money! Some truths about reality are simply beyond the capacity of one person on their own to observe.
But there is a method of observing reality that does yield consistently reliable results and from this method we have discovered many, many things about the universe that lone observation could never bring. You even referred to that method yourself, yesterday. Like thisā¦
Reason requires that claims be accepted only when they are supported by sound empirical and observational evidence.
If inflation itself has not been directly confirmed, then using it as a basis to reject the existence of a Creator is speculation rather than a scientifically established conclusion.
Yesterday you got it exactly right by identifying the scientific method as being more objective and more reliable than subjective personal observations. But in the interim, now that youāve read the facts about how we cannot know if the universe began or not, youāve shifted away from this position to one of strictly personal observation, with all of the problems of subjectivity that come with that.
I can see your thinking, Smr.
When you saw that science couldnāt give you what you needed to make a sound argument for the universe beginning to exist you shifted the goalposts and began relying on your personal observations. But in doing that youāve generated the problem of subjectivity. Your personal observations of the universe cannot be granted the same level of objectivity as those made by science.
So youāve moved from something that was objective and reliable to something that is neither.
Can you see how doing this actually PREVENTS you from making a coherent argument for the universe having a beginning?
Brothers? Really? Brothers?
Every fiber of my being wants to tell you to fuck off. But for the sake of decorum, Iāll refrain from doing so.
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So @Smr has breezed in, ignored all responses, and repeated his claimsā¦.
Preachingā¦ 
Hmmmā¦
If Smr did investigate the question of a Godās existence then surely he must have covered the same ground thatās been gone over in this thread? For example,āDoes the universe have a beginning?ā If he was searching for an answer to this why didnāt he discover the same scientific facts that have been presented here - specifically that science cannot answer the question one way or another?
That should have been the answer he should have accepted, because that IS the only answer science can give.
If, before coming here, he didnāt investigate the science deeply enough or perhaps confined himself only to philosophical investigations, that might explain why he wasnāt aware that science canāt give him the answer that he wants. That the universe does have a beginning.
But it is very puzzling and Iāve come across this kind of situation before. Where theists claim to have thoroughly investigated the science, but when questioned on the details it becomes apparent that they havenāt. I have a suspicion that I know why this is, but I was wondering of anyone else has encountered this kind of thing before?
Thank you,
Walter.
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First of all, if you truley respect our views and think our contributions are thoughtful, then your posts should start addressing our points, or at least should be showing that you have heard and understood our points. Instead you are simply making your own points over and over and completely ignoring everything everyone is saying.
With regards to āAtheismā and āAgnosticā these are two different words with two different meanings. There is no such thing as Atheism, just the Atheist label that many people wear. Atheist means a person lacks belief in any gods. Agnostic means that a person accepts that they have no knowledge of gods. You can have an agnostic atheist and you can have an agnostic theist. Most atheists are agnostic.
A hard atheist is a person who holds a belief that god does not exist. A soft atheist doesnāt hold that belief but also does not believe that any gods exist. They donāt hold a belief either way.
There is no āismā because there is nothing more to it than simply not having a belief in any gods. Atheists donāt typically belong to an organisation about non belief in gods, they donāt typically have scriptures, they donāt typically have positions they Must believe. We arenāt really a group. Just people who happen not to believe in any gods.
There are some exceptions though, Some atheists belong to Bhudist organisations, some belong to the Church of Satan, which isnāt a belief in god and the devil, but just an atheist church. Most atheists donāt belong to either of these organisations. There are even some atheists in Christianity, some church leaders are probably atheists, but they like the sense of community and perhaps donāt want to disappoint their friends and families, donāt want to be ostracised or perhaps have spent their informative years learning about the religion and have made a living off it and donāt know how to make a living any other way.
Myself, Iām ignostic, which means that I hold that the there isnāt a well defined coherent definition of what a god is. And without a well defined coherent definition, I hold that it is impossible to evaluate whether a god exists or not. I donāt think anyone has yet bothered to make a god definition that can be evaluated, so Iāll continue to wait for that definition to be presented before trying to make an evaluation.
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Just because all probability-based events we know of have happened within our universe, does that necessarily mean that these events or even the quantum fields and the quantum soup need a universe to happen inside of?
BTW - The cosmological argument, the arguments against Evolution such as āIrreducible complexityā are all just saying āwe donāt know how this could have happened, therefore GODā.
I donāt think any of these types of arguments would be compelling to change the mind of many atheists, if any.
What I would like to see (as well as a coherent definition) is positive proof of god. Not just we donāt know how X came to be, therefore GOD did it!
For example, with science, some observations of galaxies donāt match up with all the rules scientists know about gravity and GR and such, so they posit that there MUST be more matter and energy that they canāt see. There MUST be dark energy and dark matter. But with science it doesnāt stop there. There is currently great effort being put in to find positive proof of dark energy, and dark matter. They are building things to observe this stuff.
My question to you. What are theists that hold to the Cosmological Argument doing to find positive proof of god?
A good question Stevil.
But unfortunately all we can do about it is to theorise. By definition any event happening ābeyondā or ābeforeā our universe cannot be observed. If it cannot be observed then it is not subject to measurement, testing and checking. That which cannot be observed, measured, tested or checked falls outside of the limits of empirical science.
It remains purely theoretical and can only be speculated about. So no answers, one way or another, will ever be forthcoming regarding your question.
Unlessā¦
Some evidence is found within our observable universe that we can use to logically extrapolate beyond its limits. That was what all the hype and fuss was about in 2014, when a science team claimed to have detected such evidence. But they were wrong and it was a false alarm.
If they had been right then we would have had good logical grounds for inferring the existence of things ābeyondā and ābeforeā our universe. These inferences wouldnāt have been within the remit of empirical science either, because what was being inferred to exist couldnāt ever be observed or tested. But they would have stood up as properly logical inferences about things ābeyondā or ābeforeā our universe, based upon sound empirical observations from within this one.
Short of actually travelling beyond our universe, that is the best we will ever do and the closest we will ever get to answering your question.
Thanks,
Walter.
Yes Stevil, I know this question was directed at Smr.
But on the basis of his conduct I can tell you what theists like him are doing to find positive proof of god.
They are ignoring any science that doesnāt give them the answers they want to find.
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Thanks for that post Walter.
Iām not a scientist, but I generally have a decent grasp of science in general.
I understand that according to Einstein SpaceTime isnāt Euclidian. And that we ought to view the universe from the perspective of light (a.k.a. massless particles). Light represents the limits, represents the least curved path, it represents the shape of the Universe. For example, in a closed Universe, light traveling in a direct line out from the ācentreā doesnāt always get further from the centre, it might start coming closer. Two objects travelling parallel to each other, wonāt necessarily remain parrallel. So I have given up on the idea of having a 3D Euclidean coordinate system. Reality/our universe is non Euclidean.
The thought about a multiverse. i.e. not just one universe by multiple of them in existence. They would represent some kind of bubble, each universe within its own bubble of existence. But there would be no light path from one universe to the next universe because that would be assuming a Euclidean Space within which all universes exist. So some could be right next to each other, they could be orbiting each other, they could collide with each other. But that assumption is wrong. They certainly canāt orbit each other because gravity travels at light speed and thus cannot affect anything outside the universe. There is no causal path, no path that light or gravity or anything within a universe can take to go outside the universe.
It does my head in a bit, to try and consider well, what does the universe itself exist within? And why did the universe itself exist anyway? Like the cosmological argument tries to say, what caused the universe to exist in the first place?
Saying God did it, is a non answer. But the problem still exists, why is there a universe, how come there was low entropy? if it was created by quantum fluctuations then are their quantum fields and the quantum soup outside the universe?
It seems outside the universe there is NOTHING. But then again, what even is NOTHING? Quantum physics says that you canāt have nothing. GR says that you canāt get outside the universe and so it makes no sense to even ask what is outside the universe.
BTW you might think of this as a crack pot thought, but I donāt think that there is anything inside a black hole either. I just donāt think that place exists, much like thinking that there is a place outside the universe.
I think for a philosophical argument the Cosmological argument is interesting, albeit it goes too far in its conclusion to say āwe call that godā and the assumptions at the beginning should start with āIfsā rather than to claim to be true.
All good stuff there, Stevil.
Iām no scientist either. Just an amateur astronomer with long-time interest in cosmology. But I can offer some speculations that go some way to answering your questions. Here goes.
Why is there such low entropy?
This is naturally answered by the way the Inflaton field behaves as it decays from itās inflating mode to its rest energy state. The Inflaton field is inherently unstable, as all such high energy fields must be. Therefore, it only inflates volumes of space for a very small amount of time indeed. Then it spontaneously decays, much in the same way scientists can observe individual particles decaying in cloud chambers and particle accelerators, here on Earth.
The decay energy bound up in the Inflaton field is then dumped into the volume of space it just inflated, thermalising it. This is what we call the Hot Big Bang. But the Inflaton field continues inflating other volumes of space beyond the discrete limits of the newly inflated and thermalised region. It does so exponentially and without end, creating more and more volumes of space and thermalising each of them in the same way. So each separate volume of space experiences a similar history to ours.
First inflation, then the decay of the Inflaton field and finally thermalisation or a Hot Big Bang.
But hereās where the similarities end. The conditions prevailing inside each newly inflated volume of space are decided randomly. By pure chance. Some volumes will be unstable and will collapse or implode. Others will expand too rapidly for gravity to form structures like galaxies, stars and planets. Some will have very low amounts of entropy and others will have very high amounts.
So we just lucked out, Stevil. The conditions in our volume of space (the observable universe) were just right. There is no plan or intention involved here. Itās just a matter of statistics. If the Inflaton field births zillions upon zillions of separate volumes of space then eventually it will also birth volumes of space like ours, which have just the right balance of conditions in them. We are one of the lucky ones.
Looking at this another way, if you toss a hundred coins into the air all at once and keep doing that often enough eventually they will all come down heads up. Thereās no magic or gods involved. You just run the numbers and it happens.
So the answer to your question about low entropy can be answered in two ways, both of them correct. The first way is the complicated one that Iāve just explained. The second way uses just one word.
Luck.
Thank you,
Walter.
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Are there quantum fields outside the universe?
The Inflaton field that is theorised to have inflated and thermalised our observable universe is a quantum scalar field.
Before the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 scalar energy fields were purely theoretical. But the Higgs boson is a localised excitation of the Higgs field. So, the fact that this boson was detected tells us that our universe is permeated with a scalar energy field. This is no longer theory and speculation. At least one scalar energy field exists in nature and we have observed one of its particles.
This puts the Inflaton field onto a completely different footing. While we cannot observe it (because it decayed and caused the Hot Big Bang) we can at least infer that scalar fields COULD HAVE existed long ago. On that basis we can further infer that quantum energy fields like the Inflaton did pre-exist our observable universe.
If it hadnāt, then the whole of Inflation theory collapses. Thus far we have indirect evidence that inflation (or something that acted like inflation) did happen. Inflation is the generally accepted mainstream theory of modern cosmology. It is not the only one, of course. There are competing theories that should not be dismissed. But without more and better data the jury is still out.
Therefore, if we tentatively accept Inflation we are tentatively inferring that fluctuations in a quantum field did exist āoutsideā of and ābeforeā our observable universe was birthed by the Inflaton field. But please note that the words āoutsideā and ābeforeā must be taken very loosely. Because we are dealing with matters far outside of human experience and which are very counter intuitve.
Thank you,
Walter.
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Itās getting late here Stevil and my bed is calling.
But if itās ok with you, sometime tomorrow I can have a go at answering your questions about NOTHING. It may surprise you but the popular notion of the universe emerging out of nothing came from just one science paper. A paper which Iāve investigated and which Iāve had some help understanding. This help was given to me by scientists on another forum.
Iāll be happy to share this information with you.
Thanks and goodnight!
Walter.
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Sounds fascinating, I look forward to your post. Thanks