h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

BB, quantum physics says (and has been proven by experiment, I think) that there is no such thing as a totally empty space. It simply cannot exist in our universe, because of the Uncertainty Principle. This is because nothing can ever be *totally* certain, and precisely zero mass/energy *is* a totally certain amount.

And also, time started with the universe. Talking about time before the big bang is meaningless.

Denver Pose so.your saying after the big bang,there is no such thing as empty,
Thats just an excuse to prove there something here in my book.obvioulsy everything inside the universe is something,Take the empty jar,i mentioend earlier,they maybe nothing in the jar,but theres still the jar.

Im going back to before the universe began and before the jar was made,
we should discount normal physics then,but we are bordering on mystical again,there is either something here or there isnt.

<> BB

Yeah, pretty much.

<>

There was *no* before. Time originated, along with space, *at* the big bang. You can discount physics once you understand it, maybe..

Although, nobody understands (yet) why the laws of nature allowed the universe to exist in the first place. Is that what you're getting at?

Thats it ,I blame God for it,so it does exist,but not with a white beard though


Thanks for the chat folks,I will leave you all, to continue with all your thoughts on the matter.

>>"Potholer,you saying empty cannot be defined"

No, anyone can define 'empty'. I'm saying that according to QM, empty can't be *achieved*.

>>",I recall another person saying >"as you say Quantum Physics is a term of dubious meaning.when it comes to the word empty."

Well, I did say it the other way around.

Icotan, omnipresence, yes.

Omnipresence also makes a mockery of the objection that you 'can't prove a universal negative'.

The negation of a simple existential assertion, such as 'unicorns exist' is a universal negative - we have to look everywhere to check that they don't.

But for an omnipresent entity, the negation is not a _universal_ negative. The negation of 'God exists', 'god does not exist' is logically equivalent to 'there is somewhere that God doesn't exist'. So we only need to check one place to confirm his non-existence.

And if you want a laugh, ask a thiest in what way God does exist in:
a) The TV show 'Father Ted'
b) During any massacre you can think of
c) In Hell

"On the topic of God, I basically agree with Epicurus, though I'd like to add one thing. If the current theories on the origin of the universe are correct, then *something* must have caused the Big Bang. According to the laws of thermodynamics, something cannot be created out of nothing, so the point of infinite mass and infinite density from which the universe sprang, must have been created by something. You could call this 'first impulse' God, but I don't think it actually is a sentient entity (it's more likely a force of nature), let alone that it has the power to influence the daily lives of the people on this planet."

The existence of this and other universes may well be a probabilistic thing. No deities involved. The current theories posit that if this universe exists, that other universes could have also sprung into existence, and because these other universes are possible, there are in fact a lot of universes out there, each separate from the others. Prof. Michio Kaku has a readable book on the subject that doesn't require heavy knowledge of physics to understand, only an open mind ( "Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos," available on the various flavors of Amazon.com). He does posit a deistic kind of prime mover, but that's not necessarily central to his thesis.

pa, can you elaborate - what theory in particular suggests that 'something must have caused the big bang'?

You see 'something must have caused this' is not the sort of statement you would expect to find in any scientific theory.

Indeed something may have caused the big bang, and something else may have caused that and, perhaps, so on...

Giving a label to any of these hypothetical causes doesn't add any meaning to the hypothesis. Calling one God is just a sophist trick.

Afternoon E B

<>

A good one though, and one you cannot disprove ?

Novo

novosibirsk,

What do you mean disprove?

The application of labels to as yet undiscovered phenomena is in principle fairly arbitrary.

Let's say I call the thing causing the big bang "Dog"
And the thing causing "Dog" I will call "Trevor"
And the thing causing "Trevor" I will call "Zeus"
And the thing causing "Zeus" I will call "Sheffield United FC"

Without prejudging the question of whether any of these exist(ed).

What is there to disprove in any of that?

Extra Bold, IMO, there is no need for an infinite regression, because the "One God" isn't part of this Universe, and therefore doesn't need to have a cause...

Vicky

Morning E B

It WAS a joke! , but since you have taken it seriously....

If the universe and time began with a big bang, what caused it, and what was there before the moment of instant creation.? It cannot be 'nothing', so do what do you attribute the explosion , and the subsequent creation?

Novo

DA,

Again you are just playing with labels. I didn't say anything about whether Dog, Trevor and Sheffield United FC are in or outside this universe.

The problem is much clearer if we define universe to include everything that exists whether in "this universe" or elsewhere. Surely it is the origins of this "everything that exists" universe that is interesting. Once it exists, then the origins of specific big bangs etc are easier to explain, whether by natural or supernatural means.

Yet, obviously you cannot explain the "everything that exists" universe by postulating another thing that created it. That thing would have to not exist! (Hmmm, who do we know who doesn't exist and goes round creating universes.)

novosibirsk,

Yes, I realised it was probably a joke after I had replied. Still the idea of "good" sophistry offends my spirit of honest intellectual enquiry.

Anyhoo, what do you mean by before the beginning of time? That doesn't appear to make any sense. Surely the term "before" can only relate two events that are both in time. (In fact can something be an event if it is not "in time"?)

Causality doesn't appear to work without time. But that's OK because I'm not insisting that everything must be caused, or making claims about the origins of time.

Neither am I, it was something I picked up from an earlier post - to the effect that time began at the instant of the big bang. maybe I just misread it!.

The thing that fascinates me is the attempts by the atheists, physicists and astronomers on these God threads, to take us all back to the big bang, but without explaining its cause, or it's origin.

Until this barrier is crossed (pun) it isn't possible to deny that God (to use a descriptive name), caused it.

Novo

Novo,

Watch this: "God didn't cause the big bang"

I guess it is possible to deny after all.

By considering "God" a descriptive name, you are lumping in this suggested cause of the big bang with a lot of other baggage commonly associated with the name. The baggage will vary from believer to beliver, but typically includes goodness, omnipotence, personality, jealousy, a tendency to intervene in the natural world by giving you a tingly feeling when you pray. That sort of thing. It doesn't have to be consistent, apparently.

The assertion made by saying "God" caused the big bang, is that a) a cause exists, and b) that cause shares these other properties.

There may well be such a cause, but as we know nothing about it, there is no reason to start making unrelated assertions about that cause. I might as well claim that the cause of the big bang is yellow, or granulated, or prefers Jarvis Cocker to Joe Cocker. Is that impossible to deny?

>>"Until this barrier is crossed (pun) it isn't possible to deny that God (to use a descriptive name), caused it."<<

Well sure, but that puts God more or less exactly equal with anything else you care to make up, and therefore infinitessimally unlikely.

Novo is right, strictly speaking. But it also isn't possible to deny that the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn (blessed are her holy hooves) didn't either.

The best we can say is that it's highly unlikely and there is no evidence to support the claim.

There's also the problem that after the Big Bang there is no evidence of God in the universe *at all*. So it might have existed before the universe began, though that's purely speculation, but it almost certainly doesn't exist now and so can't be used as a basis for any kind of morality.

But positing an extremely powerful being that existed before the cause of anything else causes real problems, because you have to explain how that creature came into being in the first place.

Suppose the universe sprung into being from a random quantum fluctation in some dimension, brane or whatever. If so, there is no need for any further 'cause', merely a probability of it happening. The same is true of God of course, but God is reported to be a stable, complex intelligence with the ability to observe its surroundings. The term for such a being appearing randomly is a 'Boltzmann Brain', and these are thought to be so rare that the chances of a single one emerging in our universe's entire history to date are almost zero. If God is also endowed with the ability to create universes, then he/she must be less probable again than an intelligence with mere observation capabilities.

I'm not clever enough to do the sums but I would guess that, in terms of simple probabilites, the spontaneous emergence of the universe is gazillions of times more likely than the spontaneous emergence of a complex being who then creates universes. It is not really correct to put the two 'theories' on an equal footing.