The Steve Ultimatum

stevejazzx

So, Pat Kenny stumbled into the dark recesses of the most diificult question in all the universe last friday during his awful interview with poor old Mr. Dawkins. No, not the ingenius Santa Clause propostion (you almost had him Pat!) but rather the idea that the 'ingredient' that gave rise to the big bang must have it's own history and that same history must have a history and so on ad infinitum. Logic simply paints itself into a corner. Evoulution explains how over millions of years cells kept mutating and adapting to survive, arrving at a rather lacklustre human race that seems hellbent on de-evolving . But how do we resolve to a begining? Is there such a thing as a begining? Is it possible to imagine nothingness? Even a void in black space is quite a substantial 'something' in scientific terms.
Even if you propose that a supernatural entity put us here, then how did that entity come into being? Even if you claim that we are all subconsciously imagining one another you still get no closer to the origins of the universe, unless you propse that the universe doesn't actually exist, it's a dream but then even if it is a dream the dream must exist in something which must also have it's own history ad infinitum. So if there is something which there clearly is, it must of existed forever, forever being an unquantifiable amount of time with no begining and no end. The idea of something without a begining existing is beyond the mind of science and only gets more complicated if we use a supernatural intellignece to explain it for then we must explain thier history ad infinitum.
So my deduction is that we do exist in something that was never started and will never end, soemthing which just is, without a God or science.

Zombrex

Well you are thinking in terms of the laws of time that govern our universe (which makes sense since you live in our universe).

But it is just an assumption that the phenomena such as "time" exists outside of our universe. As such it is also an assumption that what existed before our universe must have existed forever or had some starting point, as our universe did.

But this is all applying the rules of our reality to something we actually know very little about. The rules might not apply.

You can't really deduce what it was like before our universe started because our entire perception, the way we organise reality around us, is dependent on the laws of space time.

For example, can you imagine living if time moved backwards? Or imagine living in a 2D space? It is very hard for us to imagine these things beyond mathematical forumal.

A simple "we don't know" I think is the best we can hope for for the time being.

stevejazzx

Yep...only one but though, even if we can't apply our rules/logic/science etc to before the begining, other dimsensions etc it is still reasonable to conclude (within our puny earth logic) that these other incomphrensible things have a history ad infinitum, for noone has ever been able to propose even in a philisophical context something existing without it having first being created.

bonkey

stevejazzx wrote:

it is still reasonable to conclude (within our puny earth logic) that these other incomphrensible things have a history ad infinitum, for noone has ever been able to propose even in a philisophical context something existing without it having first being created.

No, its not reasonable. Its a downright contradiction in terms.

If time has a beginning, then discussing "before" time is meaningless. Discussing "history" or "ad-infinitum" is meaningless. Discussing cause/effect in any way is meaningless.

Why are they meaningless? because they are all concepts that require the existence of time in order to have meaning.

You could assume that there is some sort of other temporal framework outside of our time...but now you'd be saying that time existed before time existed. Oops...that won't work.

With our puny earth logic (as you call it) we arrive at Wicknight's conclusion : we don't know. It is only the abandonment of the strict application of this logic that allows us to arrive at other conclusions.

Zombrex

stevejazzx wrote:

Yep...only one but though, even if we can't apply our rules/logic/science etc to before the begining, other dimsensions etc it is still reasonable to conclude (within our puny earth logic) that these other incomphrensible things have a history ad infinitum, for noone has ever been able to propose even in a philisophical context something existing without it having first being created.

No actually that is exactly what we cannot do, because you are still defining things within the rules of our universe, within the rules of space-time, as we understand them.

As bonkey points out if these rules don't exist we cannot define anything using them.

I understand it is very hard to imagine anything working outside of these rules, which makes sense since we live in our universe that follows said rules.

But that doesn't mean that these rules must apply outside of our universe. Just because we cannot imagine how something would work without using our rules doesn't mean it must use our rules.

Hence we come back to "we don't know".

stevejazzx

Yeah I agree what you 2 guys are saying. I understand it, I was hypothesizing that it was possible that at least some of our logic might apply across differnet contexts if not all of it. Then again it might not so we don't know....it's very unsatisfying isn't it.

Zombrex

stevejazzx wrote:

Yeah I agree what you 2 guys are saying. I understand it, I was hypothesizing that it was possible that at least some of our logic might apply across differnet contexts if not all of it. Then again it might not so we don't know....it's very unsatisfying isn't it.

Well we all have to find a way to get on with our lives without thinking about it ... personally, I drink a lot ...

stevejazzx

[quote=bonkey]

You could assume that there is some sort of other temporal framework outside of our time...but now you'd be saying that time existed before time existed. Oops...that won't work.

[/quote]

I never tried to say time existed before time but rather that nothing can ever be the first thing to of begun because there is always a history so philosophers and Scientists treat this question as a conundrum. The belief is that the time “ arrow” is a “straight line”; from a nebulous beginning to an uncertain future. This question is answered if we consider time as being curved, a circle. Then, around circular time there is always a chicken before an egg and an egg before a chicken. Then time becomes cyclical and repetitive. Past, present and future are relative to a point of reference (Einstein). The law of conservation of energy/matter states: “Matter is not created nor destroyed, it only changes”. How consistent are the theories of the “origin of the universe” with this law? This first law of thermodynamics clearly states that “matter cannot be created.” There is no creation, things always existed but changed. Matter is eternal. There is neither beginning nor end in eternity. Some scientists argue that time “doesn’t exist.” If so, then, it is impossible to have a “creation” time or beginning. The word “beginning” implies time.