An Infinite Past?

[shunyadragon]

That being the case what is this something more that you said is "beyond anything you could imagine?" I mean you are still left with more of the same, just more universes forming and dying.

Yes, an infinite number of possible universes forming, existing and dying.

[JimL]

I still think that's a big enough question for another thread, I might open one about it.

It's a much more interesting question than whether the universe is infinitely old. Shortly some of the motivating reasons why you want to introduce this distinction is that it explains how the world can be many and one: Why is it possible for there to be hundreds of objects who aren't identical, which are all somehow chairs? More importantly its needed in order to explain why its possible for things to change at all, without ending up arguing that change is an illusion ala Parmenides.

Well, we do not know that Parmenides was wrong. I think Einstein would agree with him, no?

The latter has actually come into vogue again by thinking of space-time as one solid block and particles as mere trajectories through it. Nothing really changes.

Yes, and though I hold the idea suspect, much greater minds than my own hold to it, so who knows.

I think see the problem you have. If the quantum vacuum could spawn the universe, but must be composed of actuality and potentiality, then why is God exempt?

The difference is that quantum vacuum does undergo change. In string theory there's metastabile vacuums that over time might drop down into a more stable state with new physical parameters. This causes an inflation event, and with this change is a huge release of energy which repopulates the empty space with particles and you have a new universe. So the quantum vacuum, we'd say, has the potential for undergoing this kind of change.

However since the universe wasn't made out of God, God didn't undergo any change when He made it. There's nothing wrong with pure actuality, actualising something else. In our case God made matter with all the potentials possible.

If, as seer puts it, God thinks successively, then he undergoes change. And if the change or thought is a creative act then wouldn't you say that is a potential coming to fruition.

So if its not testable, but a philosophical deduction, how can it then be a hypothesis?

Call it what you will, the point was that creation, ergo God, was seers conclusion.

I'm using the definitions as they've originally been used in scholastic philosophy. Even if I wasn't, all you really then mean is that I ought to exchange the word 'infinite' with 'unlimited' or something like that. Its not really interesting to quibble about terminology.

No Christian theist has ever postulated that the divine nature has a size.

Hmmm, how can anything be omnipresent, that is be everywhere, and not have size?

The same way a point, even if doesn't have any width, or height, can be the center of a circle. There's no place anywhere which is inaccessible to God, or for which it is harder for him to reach.

Inaccessible is not the same as omnipresent.

I think all of these things could be true by analogy, but by analogy. Its closer to the truth to say that God changed his mind, than any other set of words we can use.

First, in order to change ones mind, and create, takes time, and so to would observing the flow of time necessitate time in the observer. Can you watch the ticking of a clock without time passing for yourself as well? No. So by what logic do you apply timeless observation of the flow of time to God?

However God becoming incarnate didn't change his nature. We only have one nature in us, our human nature. However there's nothing inconsistent with conceiving of a person who has two different natures at the same time. In Jesus both a divine nature existed alongside with a human nature. That's why we say he's fully man and fully God.

If the two natures are in contradiction with each other then it is inconsistent. Jesus couldn't have been both of time and not of time, he couldn't be the unmoved mover and a mover at the same time because the one contradicts the other.

The human nature of Jesus could undergo change, he was conceived, was born, learned to walk and talk, grew in wisdom and favour with God, walked around, preached, ate, drank, prayed and slept, suffered, died and was resurrected. However his divine nature didn't undergo any changes during this.

If his divine nature didn't undergo any changes then his divine nature wasn't with him when he was walking around preaching, eating, drinking and suffering.

This is what's believed, and if there's any specific problem with it you need to point it out.

I think I just did, but perhaps you have an explanation?

As far as I see it there isn't.

Not with your eyes you can't, no, but with your mind you know that there was a before previous to the now of our universe. I know you say it was a logical before not a time before, but logical or not it was before and before indicates time.

You can distinguish between two ways of something before another causally. Temporally prior and logically prior. Temporal orderings depends on a lot of things, with theory of relativity it can depend on distance and the relative velocity of moving frames. Logical ordering never changes, and is independent of time. Basically temporal ordering is just the act of sorting events that occur by what time they occurred at. Logical ordering is when we sort events depending on whether one is causally prior the other (in relativity this occur when they're outside each others lightcones).

Again, whether you argue causally prior or logically prior it is still prior to, and prior to indicates time.

A hand is holding up a ball, the hand is logically prior to the ball not falling to the floor, since its the cause. A flagpole casts a shadow on the ground, and the flagpole is the cause of the shadow, the shadow isn't the cause of the flagpole.

These arguments don't work as an analogy because they both objects exist together. The hand didn't create the ball, the ball is already in the hand, so you can call that logically prior, but if the hand was all there was and then it created the ball then the hand existed prior, temporally prior, to the ball.

In time God appears as creating the universe simultaneously with the universe beginning to exist. However he is logically prior in the sense that God is the cause of the universe rather than vice versa.

If God created the universe, then it doesn't only appear that he existed prior to it, like the hand without the ball, he would both logically and temporally had to have existed prior to it.

Agreed.

Okay, so we agree on that, except that I don't believe anything comes from nothing.

Why does God require a cause?

I believe that reply was directed to seer, but my point was that if God is a mind and thinks in succession then he has the same problem of infinite regression with regard to his mental changes that seer applies to the universe with regards to its physical changes.

[Leonhard]

Well, we do not know that Parmenides was wrong. I think Einstein would agree with him, no?

We do know that things change, just pick up an object and drop it. I baptise you in the name of the five senses.

Your experience will go through several stages, at one point the object will be in your hand, the next you've let it go, the next moment again its accelerating downwards and finally it hits the floor.

Now you could argue that all these are subjective experiences, but unfortunately then you're left with making sense of having subjective experiences that can undergo change even if the world is utterly static. It wouldn't solve the problem, it would just move it back one step.

The only solution is that there are objective changes in the world around us, and these are the cause of our experiences.

As for Einstein his first paper on the theory of relativity was pretty much an A-theory of time. Later Minkowsky introduced the notion of a spacetime, since one could use that to make certain aspects of special relativity mathematically more elegant. However its only a preference of math.

If, as seer puts it, God thinks successively, then he undergoes change.

Agreed, but he doesn't, that would be a fairly recent and heterodox idea about God. That's not the conception I defend, and for many of the same reasons you outline. It comes with unsolvable problems.

And if the change or thought is a creative act then wouldn't you say that is a potential coming to fruition.

Yes, if God had to move from a state of being alone and content with being alone, to a state of willing the creation of the world, then a change would have occurred.

Call it what you will, the point was that creation, ergo God, was seers conclusion.

As long as it doesn't result in a later complaint about God not appearing in theories and models in physics I'm good.

Hmmm, how can anything be omnipresent, that is be everywhere, and not have size?

In your view what does it mean for something to have a size?

Inaccessible is not the same as omnipresent.

Uh, I agree. That's why I said that everything would be accessible not inaccessible? Typo?

However theologians do mean that God is present by His act: He maintains things in existence moment by moment, and He sometimes moves them directly by intervening in various ways. He's just not present by having a physical form, and this physical form filling the universe. There's no place where He can't or doesn't act in some way.

First, in order to change ones mind, and create, takes time, and so to would observing the flow of time necessitate time in the observer.

I would agree only in so far as objects that can change, has to undergo a change to get from one state to another. However there are many ways that this can be done without time. For example if mutualness and synchronicity was relaxed then a thousand years of subjective might pass for you, but only a few seconds worth for your neighbour. In that case I'd advice you to ditch using clocks.

However since its not argued that God changes, this does not apply to Him. He's beyond time.

Can you watch the ticking of a clock without time passing for yourself as well? No. So by what logic do you apply timeless observation of the flow of time to God?

This is a very interesting problem, but I know how to explain some of the issues. Relating each moment to God is easy enough, its like all the points of a circle having an equal distance from a center. He's equally present to all those moments, being the exact God at all times, even if he doesn't have extension like the line. What this looks like from God's perspective I'm not sure.

If the two natures are in contradiction with each other then it is inconsistent. Jesus couldn't have been both of time and not of time, he couldn't be the unmoved mover and a mover at the same time because the one contradicts the other.

If his divine nature didn't undergo any changes then his divine nature wasn't with him when he was walking around preaching, eating, drinking and suffering.

Christ couldn't have been eternally incarnate, that's true. However what's the problem with Him simultaniously having a human nature, and a divine nature, each with different properties? And why must his divine nature undergo change? It could be in him in pure act, being completely a harmonious part of his human will.

Not with your eyes you can't, no,

Seriously?

but with your mind you know that there was a before previous to the now of our universe. I know you say it was a logical before not a time before, but logical or not it was before and before indicates time.

Why? I just outlined the difference, and I even showed how something logically prior could be simultaneous.

These arguments don't work as an analogy because they both objects exist together. The hand didn't create the ball, the ball is already in the hand, so you can call that logically prior, but if the hand was all there was and then it created the ball then the hand existed prior, temporally prior, to the ball.

So if the hand instantaneously created the ball, what would be different?

If God created the universe, then it doesn't only appear that he existed prior to it, like the hand without the ball, he would both logically and temporally had to have existed prior to it.

Not if the cause is simultaneous with the effect.

Okay, so we agree on that, except that I don't believe anything comes from nothing.

We also agree with that. You do know that I believe that God made the universe right? I most certainly don't believe in creation ex nihilo qua nihil (creation out of nothing and by nothing). It takes a certain kind of highly educated form of nonsense in order to believe in the latter.

I believe that reply was directed to seer, but my point was that if God is a mind and thinks in succession then he has the same problem of infinite regression with regard to his mental changes that seer applies to the universe with regards to its physical changes.

I agree, if God does undergo change seer won't be able to defend the idea that infinite regressions are impossible.

[Tassman]

Again Tass, there is zero evidence for a multiverse. And there certainly is no good model for an infinite physical past. And the cycle model has pretty much been discarded.

Why Physicists Can't Avoid a Creation Event

http://www.scribd.com/doc/77980709/W...Creation-Event

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...science-space/

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...g-ripples.html

Ok, fine, but we are both in the realm of opinion. I gave my opinion, you gave yours. What else is there at this point?

I, like you, am using intuition. I can imagine something going out of existence, I can't imagine something coming from nothing. Can you?

Yet anotherhttp://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity

I guess if you think it is possible for something to pop into existence out of nothing then nothing would be logically impossible in your mind. So we are back to dueling opinions...

In fact quantum physics shows that "nothing" does not exist. There are always quantized particle fields with random fluctuations. Quantum physics also shows that events can occur with no cause. Many eminent physicists, e.g. Stephen Hawking, Laurence Krauss, Sean M. Carroll, Victor Stenger, Michio Kaku, Alan Guth, Alex Vilenkin, Robert A.J. Matthews, and Frank Wilczek, have all created scientific models whereby the Big Bang (and thus our entire universe) could arise from nothing but a random quantum vacuum fluctuation in a particle field, via natural processes. There is no reason to assume that this is not a common process; quite the contrary. See above re the quote from Stanford physicist Andrei Linde'.

I think as long as you have physical cause and effect you have time. It is after all successive events are what marks time. In this case there would be no break in the chain, one event leads to another, finally to this present universe.

[seer]

Yes, an infinite number of possible universes forming, existing and dying.

Sure, we can not grasp infinity, but where is the "something more" that we could never imagine? It would just be more of the same, over and over again. No big deal.

[seer]

Yes, and that is Linde's "theory." Gravitational waves simply could be a feature of our universe, pointing to nothing else:

And for some theorists, simply proving that inflation happened at all would be a sign of the multiverse.... For now, physicists don't know how they might observe the multiverse and confirm that it exists

Nothing conclusive here. And look at the title of this thread, does a multiverse necessarily get us to an infinite past? Well no, not according to Vilenkin and Guth:

Eternal inflation is essentially an expansion of Guth's idea, and says that the universe grows at this breakneck pace forever, by constantly giving birth to smaller "bubble" universes within an ever-expanding multiverse, each of which goes through its own initial period of inflation. Crucially, some versions of eternal inflation applied to time as well as space, with the bubbles forming both backward sand forwards in time (see diagram).But in 2003, a team including Vilenkin and Guth considered what eternal inflation would mean for the Hubble constant, which describes mathematically the expansion of the universe. They found that thee quations didn't work ( Physical Review Letters , DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.90.151301). "You can't construct a space-time with this property," says Vilenkin. It turns out that the constant has a lower limit that prevents inflation in both time directions. "It can't possibly be eternal in the past," says Vilenkin."There must be some kind of boundary."

http://www.scribd.com/doc/77980709/W...Creation-Event

[shunyadragon]

If God created the universe, then it doesn't only appear that he existed prior to it, like the hand without the ball, he would both logically and temporally had to have existed prior to it.

Okay, so we agree on that, except that I don't believe anything comes from nothing.

Agreed in terms of philosophical absolute nothing, but then; What is nothing? The cosmic nature of the matrix of our physical existence from which our universe arose is often described as nothing. The 'utter nothingness' in the above quote may the cosmic matrix from which our universe arose. In Buddhism it is undefined as 'shunya.'

I believe that reply was directed to seer, but my point was that if God is a mind and thinks in succession then he has the same problem of infinite regression with regard to his mental changes that seer applies to the universe with regards to its physical changes.

The problem of Infinite Regress is it is a human construct, and in reality has no meaning in consideration of whether the reality of our physical existence is infinite or not. Actually it has no relationship to whether anything is infinite or finite. Actually the believe that God cannot change is related to the delusion that something that changes cannot be infinite.

In the Baha'i view Methodological Naturalism is a form of Descriptive Naturalism where the knowledge evolves, and is a manifestation of the 'Independent Search for Truth.' As far as the understanding of the nature of our physical existence it takes precedence over scripture, and all scripture concerning the nature of our physical existence must be interpreted in the light of science.

In the same light the scriptures of the world's religions represent the human view of the nature of the Divine and Revelation, and this knowledge evolves over time.

[shunyadragon]

Yes, and that is Linde's "theory." Gravitational waves simply could be a feature of our universe, pointing to nothing else:

Nothing conclusive here. And look at the title of this thread, does a multiverse necessarily get us to an infinite past? Well no, not according to Vilenkin and Guth:

'Necessarily' is the key. As Carroll quoted Guthe, he stated that he did not know, but the greater cosmos (including our universe) is most likely infinite.

[Carrikature]

Ok, fine, but we are both in the realm of opinion. I gave my opinion, you gave yours. What else is there at this point?

I, like you, am using intuition. I can imagine something going out of existence, I can't imagine something coming from nothing. Can you?

I don't think this is accurate. Yes, some of this is opinion, but I'm drawing from previous work done by other people. It's not limited to what I can or cannot imagine. Such a metric is seriously flawed. It's not just intuition, either. There's a reason I put it in terms of set theory. You've accepted the presentation of two sets (existence and non-existence), but you have no real reason to reject bi-directional flow between them. You have to show that to approach completeness. Otherwise, it's more akin to hand-waving. In short, your theory is incomplete. The answer to "What else is there?" is completing the theory and assessing the logical consequences and/or internal consistency of each view. Just because you start with an opinion doesn't mean you have to stop there.

I guess if you think it is possible for something to pop into existence out of nothing then nothing would be logically impossible in your mind. So we are back to dueling opinions...

I don't think it is possible for something to pop into existence out of nothing. Quite the opposite. I also deny that something can pop out of existence into nothing.

I think as long as you have physical cause and effect you have time. It is after all successive events are what marks time. In this case there would be no break in the chain, one event leads to another, finally to this present universe.

I consider 'physical' to be one of those forms I mentioned earlier. You could still have a time internal to a universe without it also existing external to the universe. The real problem, though, is that you (or anyone, really) can't divorce completely from human experience, and our language doesn't really allow us to express alternatives.

[seer]

I don't think it is possible for something to pop into existence out of nothing. Quite the opposite. I also deny that something can pop out of existence into nothing.

Ok, so you can't imagine something popping into existence, can you imagine energy loosing all ability to do anything?

I consider 'physical' to be one of those forms I mentioned earlier. You could still have a time internal to a universe without it also existing external to the universe. The real problem, though, is that you (or anyone, really) can't divorce completely from human experience, and our language doesn't really allow us to express alternatives.

I think we agree here.

[seer]

This does not solve the problem of infinite regression Tass. unless you break the chain of cause and effect and end up with an effect without a cause.

[Carrikature]

Ok, so you can't imagine something popping into existence, can you imagine energy loosing all ability to do anything?

I'm not sure. Even in a low energy state, shouldn't energy have the ability to do something? It's still energy. If nothing else, that would seem like a transition into a different form rather than remaining energy as we know it.

I think we agree here.

[seer]

I'm not sure. Even in a low energy state, shouldn't energy have the ability to do something? It's still energy. If nothing else, that would seem like a transition into a different form rather than remaining energy as we know it.

So you really can't imagine energy (no matter the form) losing the ability to do anything? Doesn't the second law of thermodynamics at least point to that possibility?

[Carrikature]

So you really can't imagine energy (no matter the form) losing the ability to do anything? Doesn't the second law of thermodynamics at least point to that possibility?

No. Conservation of energy still holds. The Second Law relates to loss of work as heat. The total amount of energy is unchanged even though it undergoes form conversion(s).

[seer]

No. Conservation of energy still holds. The Second Law relates to loss of work as heat. The total amount of energy is unchanged even though it undergoes form conversion(s).

Yes, but if you lose the loss of work through heat what do you have left?