Was life inevitable?

[Mark Quayle]

Yes. Science deals with Efficient Causes, which act in temporal sequence within this universe. Not all causes need be temporally prior to their effects.

Hawking is entitled to his opinion and he may well be right. But it does not require that the Big Bang occur ex nihilo nor rule out that something has existed co-eternally with God and caused by Him.

I don't think anybody is saying the BB occurred ex nihilo. But I am saying that "co-eternal" with God, if logically causal-sequence-independent of God, is not caused by God, and therefore it is self-contradictory to call it caused by God. God does not do self-contradictory. He may do what to us is paradox, but he has no use for making a rock too big for himself to pick up.

 

[Speedwell]

I don't think anybody is saying the BB occurred ex nihilo. But I am saying that "co-eternal" with God, if logically causal-sequence-independent of God, is not caused by God.

And if not "logically causal-sequence independent?"

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Seeing as time began with the BB, according to Hawking, I believe it was, you have a point...

If you're referring to the Hartle-Hawking 'No Boundary' proposal, the universe is temporally closed, but has no beginning (the name sums it up). Time acquires an imaginary (mathematical) component around the big bang, becoming space-like, so there is no temporal starting point - the universe is self-contained and closed in time. This is analogous to how time becomes space-like inside the event horizon of a black hole - the singularity is the future of all trajectories. However, last time I looked, the H-H 'No Boundary' proposal was thought to be flawed (although I've heard there are other similar proposals).

Fundamental physics and good sense both require always "you can't get something from nothing". Yet even the notion of nothingness requires a law of logical existence / non-existence. Without God there isn't even nothingness. Good reason says he invented it all.

When physicists say something can come from 'nothing', they mean some state governed by quantum field theory; this may be more fundamental than spacetime (i.e. spacetime is emergent from it), or simply 'empty' spacetime (ie. with no particles or forces). Quantum fluctuations in such a state can cause a phase transition to an expanding 'bubble' of spacetime (a 'baby universe'), or generate a baby universe by 'budding' within spacetime itself. The initial state does not have an entropic arrow of time, so could be considered atemporal or eternal and could potentially generate an infinite number of baby universes.

And here we can see possible eternal universal law in that it has always been, but only because God has always been. God is not made of it, but made it.

The traditional God hypothesis is superfluous and irrelevant, and has no explanatory or predictive power. Since the physical state from which the universe may have emerged has the relevant attributes of the Kalam cosmological argument 'uncaused cause' ontology, I suppose one could call it 'God', but given the supernatural and anthropomorphic baggage associated with the word, I think it would be a mistake.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Lol, I don't know if you are being funny or if you misread me. I was most definitely not saying "unknown cause" is synonymous with "Creator". The term, "unknown cause", could be a Jub-Jub Bird, or whatever, which is not even a decent, cogent speculation.

My point was that if the cause is unknown, then it is unknown. Making up a supernatural entity to serve as a cause is unjustifiable.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

But doesn't good reason demand a cause for the existence of the universe? Even the BB priors science has proposed, to my mind, demand logical cause --not self-existence, being subject to causal laws and principles.

Strictly speaking, no. Logic suggests (dictates?) that the greater universe (or multiverse) is ultimately acausal - and in fundamental quantum theory, both time and causality appear to be emergent (contingent).

Even the Einsteinian 4D Parminidean block universe view can be temporally infinite in extent, with sequences of low to high entropy providing segments with apparent arrows of time in either direction. Such ideas are speculative but consistent with physics as currently understood.

 

[SelfSim]

The concept that a cause is fundamentally different from an effect pretty much doesn't exist in physics. It doesn't appear in any equations .. therefore its not used in any formal sense. (I personally think its best viewed as a sort of informal tool). Humans almost intuitively adopt the notion of cause being different from effect, and then become very adept at manipulating it ... we see small children do this all the time ... all this 'intuition', even though we can't really describe what connects a cause to an effect, at all!

What all the different views on this do show however, is that (IMO) we'd probably all buy off on the idea that things happen for some kind of reason which doesn't come from the way we are choosing to think about a situation (such as the 'cause' of the universe). Ie: we all seem to buy off on the idea that things happen for some kind of reason which is apparently, (and totally contradictory to the evidence), completely independent of the way we are choosing envisage the situation we are attempting to describe. But how can one envisage anything independently from the very thing it takes to think about anything?

In this sense, it would seem that we have all chosen to completely ignore the influence individual mindsets are having over the reasons for adopting our respective individual positions.

 

[Mark Quayle]

And if not "logically causal-sequence independent?"

Then, obviously, caused by God. Therefore, not co-eternal.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If you're referring to the Hartle-Hawking 'No Boundary' proposal, the universe is temporally closed, but has no beginning (the name sums it up). Time acquires an imaginary (mathematical) component around the big bang, becoming space-like, so there is no temporal starting point - the universe is self-contained and closed in time. This is analogous to how time becomes space-like inside the event horizon of a black hole - the singularity is the future of all trajectories. However, last time I looked, the H-H 'No Boundary' proposal was thought to be flawed (although I've heard there are other similar proposals).

When physicists say something can come from 'nothing', they mean some state governed by quantum field theory; this may be more fundamental than spacetime (i.e. spacetime is emergent from it), or simply 'empty' spacetime (ie. with no particles or forces). Quantum fluctuations in such a state can cause a phase transition to an expanding 'bubble' of spacetime (a 'baby universe'), or generate a baby universe by 'budding' within spacetime itself. The initial state does not have an entropic arrow of time, so could be considered atemporal or eternal and could potentially generate an infinite number of baby universes.

The traditional God hypothesis is superfluous and irrelevant, and has no explanatory or predictive power. Since the physical state from which the universe may have emerged has the relevant attributes of the Kalam cosmological argument 'uncaused cause' ontology, I suppose one could call it 'God', but given the supernatural and anthropomorphic baggage associated with the word, I think it would be a mistake.

re your last paragraph: the traditional God hypothesis is not well developed, generally, and, I think, purposely, because of the need to avoid excursions into favorite tangents and false claims. The fact it "has no explanatory or predictive power" does not disqualify it, but only shows it does not serve the purposes of scientific pursuits. Generally, I think, history shows "scientific pursuit" using God as a proposition, more resembles witchcraft than science. But so far, the assumption that it all begins with God does not deviate scientific study from going where it has so far gone.

And what is wrong with "supernatural"? If First Cause, it is a different order of thing from what we call "natural", and beyond it, not subject to it. (My personal opinion is that everything we may now call supernatural within the universe is as well termed "natural" in that God made it too, and tethered it to his creation. But he is not part of it, though it have its being in him.)

As for the anthropomorphic baggage, I agree. He does not resemble us, but we resemble him, though not very well in the more readily visible (to us) ways.

 

[Mark Quayle]

My point was that if the cause is unknown, then it is unknown. Making up a supernatural entity to serve as a cause is unjustifiable.

"The cause", meaning First Cause? First Cause is logically beyond its effects. "Supernatural" may well be a good word ONLY for that (the other things given that label also being effects as are all things caused by First Cause).

 

[Mark Quayle]

Strictly speaking, no. Logic suggests (dictates?) that the greater universe (or multiverse) is ultimately acausal - and in fundamental quantum theory, both time and causality appear to be emergent (contingent).

Even the Einsteinian 4D Parminidean block universe view can be temporally infinite in extent, with sequences of low to high entropy providing segments with apparent arrows of time in either direction. Such ideas are speculative but consistent with physics as currently understood.

So you demonstrate my very point. No matter how far back you go with this, even to where principle or physical law emerges with the governed effect, that whole sequence is in itself governed by a prevailing law --"The way things work". Philosophically, at least, if I can't show it more scientifically, that demands a First Cause to set that law in place.

What you are left with is simply, "Well, it has to be, since we can't go back any further than that."

I have heard [what seems to me] a similar argument with, "It is the very nature of life to come into existence" (or the like). Of course that may be true, but it doesn't disprove the need for that principle to come into effect by some external cause. It seems to me at this point, that one might as well say, "It is the nature of existence to exist."

 

[SelfSim]

... I have heard [what seems to me] a similar argument with, "It is the very nature of life to come into existence" (or the like). Of course that may be true, but it doesn't disprove the need for that principle to come into effect by some external cause. It seems to me at this point, that one might as well say, "It is the nature of existence to exist."

(Re: my underlines):
.. which, of course, still entirely depends on what you mean by 'exist' and not necessarily dependent on anything else .. such as the mysterious 'the way things work' prevailing law .. (as you're arguing).
Remember, no-one can demonstrate meaning (nor can anyone even test for it) independently of some human mind. If you think you can .. then feel free to go right ahead ... cite the test!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

re your last paragraph: the traditional God hypothesis is not well developed, generally, and, I think, purposely, because of the need to avoid excursions into favorite tangents and false claims. The fact it "has no explanatory or predictive power" does not disqualify it, but only shows it does not serve the purposes of scientific pursuits. Generally, I think, history shows "scientific pursuit" using God as a proposition, more resembles witchcraft than science. But so far, the assumption that it all begins with God does not deviate scientific study from going where it has so far gone.

It's a meaningless and unnecessary assumption.

And what is wrong with "supernatural"?

There's nothing wrong with the concept; it can be entertaining, but it's a fiction.

As for the anthropomorphic baggage, I agree. He does not resemble us, but we resemble him, though not very well in the more readily visible (to us) ways.

More imagination.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

What you are left with is simply, "Well, it has to be, since we can't go back any further than that."

The point was that it may well be that we can always go back further (infinite temporal extent) or that it doesn't make sense to talk of going back further ('No Boundary' proposals).

It seems to me at this point, that one might as well say, "It is the nature of existence to exist."

Exactly. Ultimately, at some level, the universe just is. Inventing inexplicable and incoherent supernatural ontologies using special pleading as a causal backstop is just magical thinking.

 

[Speedwell]

Then, obviously, caused by God. Therefore, not co-eternal.

I wonder why you have so much trouble with the notion of a created universe co-eternal with its creator God. You seem to have some notion of causality which rules it out somehow, but I just don't see it. It's almost as if you thought for some reason that "eternal" meant "uncaused."

 

[Mark Quayle]

I wonder why you have so much trouble with the notion of a created universe co-eternal with its creator God. You seem to have some notion of causality which rules it out somehow, but I just don't see it. It's almost as if you thought for some reason that "eternal" meant "uncaused."

Let me say it this way, then. Eternal, maybe. Co-eternal, no. There is no equality in ANY way to God. Logically, it is self-contradictory, then, that he would create something that is just as basic to existence as he is.

 

[Speedwell]

Let me say it this way, then. Eternal, maybe. Co-eternal, no. There is no equality in ANY way to God. Logically, it is self-contradictory, then, that he would create something that is just as basic to existence as he is.

No equality is implied by the use of the phrase "co-eternal" merely duration. It just means that the universe is created by God and has always existed as His creature. Mind you, I am not arguing for this state of affairs, merely advancing it as a metaphysical possibility. It is not necessary that the universe have a beginning in order to have been created by God.

 

[Tinker Grey]

No equality is implied by the use of the phrase "co-eternal." It just means that the universe is created by God and has always existed as His creature. Mind you, I am not arguing for this state of affairs, merely advancing it as a metaphysical possibility. It is not necessary that the universe have a beginning in order to have been created by God.

This reminds me of CSL's attempt at explaining the trinity (IIRC); the son is dependent on the father (ala "procedes from the father") but is co-eternal (past and future, not just future). He said to picture a book on a table; then imagine that the book has always been on the table. Something like that anyway.

 

[Speedwell]

This reminds me of CSL's attempt at explaining the trinity (IIRC); the son is dependent on the father (ala "procedes from the father") but is co-eternal (past and future, not just future). He said to picture a book on a table; then imagine that the book has always been on the table. Something like that anyway.

It's metaphysics, a discipline William F. Buckley once so elegantly described as "Tedious discourses on the inherently unknowable."

 

[Tinker Grey]

It's metaphysics, a discipline William F. Buckley once so elegantly described as "Tedious discourses on the inherently unknowable."

And yet so many seem to make doctrines out what is inherently unknowable.

 

[Speedwell]

And yet so many seem to make doctrines out what is inherently unknowable.

Complete freedom of creative expression, it's wonderful. The problem comes when you want to impose it on others as fact, rather than just enjoy it as a hobby.