Creation ex nihilo

Does anyone agree with this statement?

{If the universe came from nothing ......... it cannot be a physical entity.}


Haven't had internet the last few weeks. So sorry in advance if no reply.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Skarp</i>
<br />We can safely say that if it doesn't interact, it doesn't exist.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Interact with what? Everything in the Meta Model interacts with everything else at some scale, so you probably don't mean that. Interact with us? Do you say stars and galaxies in the universe too distant for us to see or to affect us by gravity or anything else, don't ecist? To me, that would be bizarre, so you probably don't mean that either. In fact, I can't think of a rational basis for your statement at all.

Most things are too distant in space, in time, or in scale for us to observe. So what? The eternal error humans have made since the days they thought stars were painted on the sky was to assume that what they could see was all there was. But when the famous short film "Powers of ten" was first made ~ 1970, everything known fit within 38 powers of ten. When it was remade ~ 1980, it was 40 powers of ten. When Imax did a version ~ 1996, the known universe covered 42 powers of ten. I'm not seeing a trend to converge toward some final limit here.

And why should the universe fit within 42 powers of ten rather than 142 or infinity? It's really the same question as "How big is the universe?" (Does it come to an end with nothing beyond, or is there no end?) Or "Can something come into or pass out of existence (as opposed to being assembled from or decomposed into smaller entities)? The future doesn't interact with us, so does the future not exist?

Care to elaborate on your intended meaning? -|Tom|-

There's only the one universe, so if we say that there are stars in electrons, then by definintion there's interaction. There is a major distinction between the unknown and the unknowable. There is no Kantian "thing in itself." The universe is knowable.

On Ocham's razor; it's a very useful axiom. I would use it to compare, the metamodel scaleable universe, to the rather ill defined multiverse model. Also, until fairly recent times, there was the cyclic big bang, big crunch model. Note that this was an infinte series, with no way for us to know which one we were in. I don't know if I'm the only person to think, that this is a dreadful concept. None of the information from a previous bang/crunch cycle gets through, so what's the point? [}]

The Pope wasn't acting "infallibly" when he pronounced on the big bang, he was just helping out his boys, the jesuit astronomers. It should be fun to see which way the church jumps this time round. To save the big bang we need to throw in a whole bag load of new "crystal spheres." Negative energy is my favourite [] it sounds to me, that Lucifer is getting some sort of recognition at last [}][][] Well, he is the Light Bringer[]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Fopp</i>

I haven't read your book but this statement sounds absurd to me. Zenos paradoxes are not paradoxes if you assume time and space are discrete, whereas they can't be resolved if you assume time and space are continuous.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Hi
I'm fascinated by this discussion and agree very strongly with every point you've made, Fopp. It agrees with my own stance which I'm proud to say I've arrived at without any formal mathmatical or philosophical background. I thought my stance was unique and possibly mad - particularly that time and space are both discrete and irreducible and that the alternative view of continuity leads to paradoxes (which in a way seems like proof to me).

I've also recently felt that the idea of infinity is unnecessary, even potential infinity since, once you've rejected the idea of continuity (i.e. infinitely divisible), and accept that the universe is finite, there can be no infinite set of real entities - even conceptually. Even all the possible combinations of states of being of entities that ever existed could be numbered with a finite set. In my mind the concept of an infinite set of integers just means that no limits have been defined for the set - but no-one could physically conceptualise such a set. And such a set also leads to paradoxes - which seems a bit like saying it's a poorly defined concept.

This probably isn't formulated formally enough to be taken seriously but I'm glad to have stumbled across this discussion.

Thanks.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">In my mind the concept of an infinite set of integers just means that no limits have been defined for the set - but no-one could physically conceptualise such a set.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
That's exactly what I mean by the term "potential infinity": the lack of restriction on the size of an integer or the amount of time passing and so on. Maybe the term is somewhat misleading. I only used it to illustrate the false analogies made between integers and the physical world.

I'm happy to find someone who actually agrees with me. We seem to be in the minority.

This is a very interesting thread, but...

First, the concept of a beginning of the Universe is an assumption derived from an backward extrapolation of an expansion which itself is based on the assumption that redshift indicates expansion. If we take away "expansion" then there is no need for a beginning.

Indeed, because an assumed redshift leads to an assumed expansion which leads to an assumed beginning, it is necessary, to avoid falsification, to get back to a Universe bigger than ours.

So not ony is there an assumed "event without explanation" there is also a need for an expansion of space to occur at a rate impossible in standard physics.

Two miracles.

Then this super FTL expansion has to slow down

three miracles

Not only that, because all matter was created at some beginning, this matter needs to sustain itself seemingly forever.

Four miracles.

AND, it follows, it is necesssary for this random matter to organize itself into you and me by chance

Five miracles

Furthermore, because the big bang is based on general relativity, only gravity is taken into account with no mention of electromagnetic effects.

Five and one half miracles



It has been said more than once that the galazies are not sucking matter up, instead they are spewing out matter. Matter is rotaing outward, not inward. The spirial galaxy is not a sink with matter streaming nward as a spirial, it is more like a spinnning fireworks spewing matter out.

This would explain why observations of the so-called black holes find only matter flowing outward. THe black hole itself is only a conjecture devised to explain this outward flow in terms of the supposed inflow of matter.

Even when there is no matter inflowing..

Six miracles

Oh, as far as what occured before space, there is nothing before T=0 so the question cannot be answered scientifically

Seven miracles?