- Jun 28, 2011
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Ah...no.Neither have they observed nothing. But I move through an infinite "half intervals" with every movement. I also own zero cows. If I point to the sky I could continue in that direction infinitely. Are you really trying to argue than nothing is less absurd than infinity?
I am arguing that the infinite number is like (the concept) nothing or zero. In mathematics they are both theoretical numbers that have useful properties but neither of them is something that can be encountered in the real world.
Mind you your infinite half intervals would be a useful concept for my crew when they are told that smoko time finishes at half 10, they could sit around all month and never have to turn to. But of course the reality is something altogether different, as we can demonstrate with a little bit of strategically applied momentum.
..and your no cows thing reminds me of a joke: What is red and invisible? No tomatos. WHich is of course as nearly as bad as a joke as it is an argument for the reality of nothing.
I had a wonderful series of discussions with my 10 year old son who maintained that he could create "nothing" in this way and therefore that "nothing" was something. Needless to say I was amused but not convinced.
...and your pointing at the sky and continuing on in a direction infinitely? Well I'm gob smacked. Really?
You have, in an earlier post, already stated:So you are arguing that it is more likely there is literally a "point" when the universe began out of nothing, than it is for the the total energy in the system to remain constant with perpetual quantum momentum? I see these as equally absurd and equally likely.
..so I don't no why you think I am arguing that the universe began out of nothing. Clearly the universe originated out of the cause of the universe.So you are arguing that something existed before the universe, the cause of the universe.
Furthermore, you have to posit a cause for this universe. But how is that cause distinct from the universe?
The cause is necessary, timeless, immaterial, physical, powerful, personal; whereas the universe is contingent, in time, material, physical, and constrained by the law of conservation of energy.
And what existed before the cosmic expansion? Because it wasn't nothing.
I agree except that in so far as time is a property of the physical universe, the concept of "before" is probably quite meaningless.
Yeah, I remember reading this a while ago, perhaps in the late nineties but it struck me more as the musings of someone who is wrestling with the concept of a beginning rather than as anyhting that was fixed enough to challenge a proof.Stephen Hawking argues against this proposal. He argues time can be finite without a boundary condition (using a sphere to show that the surface area is finite, but there is no beginning or ending boundaries). Hawking argues that asking what was before the universe, makes no sense because time was not a dimension. The criticism of Hawking is you must accept imaginary numbers as able to represent time.
Certainly this is addressed in the BGV paper.
This maybe where we have reached something of an impasse.I see imaginary numbers are as real as infinity and zero; they are useful tools in the real world.
I still maintain that there is a distinction between these sorts of numbers, as useful as they are, and the real world of things that actually exist.
For example where an infinity might be used to model a structure at the abstract design stage, nobody can then go to the structure once it has been built and say "look there is an infinite thing".
Yes, there are many things that might be inserted between the Cause and our Universe. This is why I stated the broadest possible concept which might include multiverse, quantum vacuum, strings and/or who knows what.Important to our discussion is that it is not a clear cut "beginning boundary" but at that supposed boundary, there are more options than just: Uncaused-cause --> Universe
No, if it is a real thing the quantum vacuum itself would be the work of the uncaused cause, particularly as a fluctuation by its nature would involve some sort of spacetime which is not a property of the Cause.Do you believe the quantum fluctuations are God?
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