Why physicists can't avoid a creator

[Lord Emsworth]

In this case the "logic" you used still has problems and the problem is that it assumes that everything has a cause, thus(by definition above) you conclude that something cannot be caused by itself. You did not state that premise, so I didn't know you hold it true. So why you think everything has a cause?

Hey, I am not mathetes123.

 

[Upisoft]

1) Yes
2) Can you get something from nothing?

1) Well, the universe does not have this applied to it. There is no point in time when there were no universe. So, the universe (using this definition) has no beginning.

2) I don't know.

 

[Upisoft]

Hey, I am not mathetes123.

Well, sorry. It seems he agreed with you though.

 

[mathetes123]

1) Well, the universe does not have this applied to it. There is no point in time when there were no universe. So, the universe (using this definition) has no beginning.

2) I don't know.

1) Science, specifically, the big bang theory, has established that the universe did have a beginning.
2) that is a cop out. You know very well that you cannot get something from nothing. You are being disingenuous here.

 

[Upisoft]

1) Science, specifically, the big bang theory, has established that the universe did have a beginning.
2) that is a cop out. You know very well that you cannot get something from nothing. You are being disingenuous here.

1) Science did not claim such thing, as long as the definition of "beginning" you agreed upon is concerned. Science thinks that time is part of the universe and thus there was no such moment in time when the universe did not exist. Now the universe may have "beginning" in something else that is not time, but we are not discussing this definition at the moment.

2) If you want longer explanation you'll get it. I certainly do not know anything that has beginning(by the current definition) that has no cause from my experience. However this is knowledge based on induction and thus is not logically suited for proofs. Anyway, even it is true, despite being only induction of observations, that will not help with the case with the universe, that has no beginning under current definition of "beginning". Thus it cannot be applied to the universe for the logical conclusion it has cause. And because all that was irrelevant for the case, I chose the short answer - "I don't know", which is true even if we agree to change the definition of "beginning".

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Well, sorry. It seems he agreed with you though.

Well, sort of at least.

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

1) God is not subject to the limitations of His own creation. Since he has no beginning, he does not require a cause. He created time and exists outside of time.

2) DNA evolved is not an answer. Have you ever seen life spontaneously appear from non-life? Has DNA ever been produced in a laboratory, much less observed to evolve in nature? How did the first DNA molecule replicate itself in the first generation without the mechanism to reproduce itself in place?

You have simply accepted evolution as the answer, not because the evidence leads to that conclusion, but because it is the answer that does not require God as the cause. With God out of the picture, you can live under the self-delusion that you are not answerable to a higher being for the way you live your life.

1) Perhaps the universe didn't have a beginning. Thus, it does not require a cause.

2) It's a red herring to ask whether we see new life spontaneously erupt today. We would not expect that kind of life to survive. You're getting into abiogenesis here, which isn't a unified field yet. But we DO have examples of self-replicating RNA, which is strong evidence that nucleic acids can replicate themselves on their own.

And as far as your ridiculous little moral guilt trip goes, I did not accept evolution because I want to live a hedonistic or amoral life. I answer to those around me, which is a far more effective way to be moral than to fear a mean sky daddy.

 

[Upisoft]

1) Perhaps the universe didn't have a beginning. Thus, it does not require a cause.

We already found out that it did not have beginning according to the definition of "beginning" he agreed upon. We may also try another definitions in search of truth, but I'm still waiting for an answer.

 

[thaumaturgy]

So you can see certain physical laws which govern the natural world in predictable, mathematically precise ways and still believe these laws did not require an intelligent law giver?

Yes

 

[mathetes123]

Yes

I admire your faith, because of you can believe that, it certainly isn't about the evidence.

 

[KarateCowboy]

I do not think anyone has demonstrated that. Ultimately, it leads to infinite regress, because if you exempt God from the rule, then the rule is worthless. It's a classic problem.

The proof is the Law of Causation. It's been proven bajillions of times. Isaac Newton, IIRC.

That said, the Law of Causation is a law about the properties of the Universe. The Universe exhibits the Law of Causation. God, as Creator of the Universe, may or may not be subject to the Law of Causation. We do not know, and probably never will.

 

[Orogeny]

I admire your faith, because of you can believe that, it certainly isn't about the evidence.

Is there a reason why a natural system should not be able to be quantified using mathematics? Please explain this reason, providing evidence for its veracity.

 

[mathetes123]

Is there a reason why a natural system should not be able to be quantified using mathematics? Please explain this reason, providing evidence for its veracity.

I would expect the natural world to be able to be quantified using mathematics if it was created by an intelligent being because design and information can only come from an intelligent source.

I would have no expectation of the natural world being quantified using mathematics if it were the result of random chance.

 

[hedrick]

The arguments in he quoted arguments do not necessarily result in God. What they seem to say is that the universe can't have come out of physical processes that follow the same kind of laws as the physics that we know. It doesn't necessarily result in God. What's outside physics as we know it could be a completely different kind of physics.

At one point theologians tried to argue that the ultimate thing -- i.e. the one that didn't come from anything else -- had to be "necessary." A necessary entity is one that by pure logic has to exist. I find that a bizarre concept. However I'm more sympathetic to a slightly more modest version: perhaps we can show that if anything interesting is going to exist, the ultimate entity has certain necessary properties. I.e. it may not be truly necessary, but might be necessary if anything is going to exist.

I think most of us have an intuition that the ultimate thing, whatever it is, should be eternal, whether that means it existed forever or isn't inside time at all. I would argue that if anything has existed forever it should either be intelligent or have intelligence present. This is again just an intuition, which I certainly can't prove. But if matter managed to self-organize into intelligence on earth within a few billion years, it would seem that a "larger" and eternal system would also either become intelligent or produce intelligence. And because of the weird mathematics of infinity, anything that would appear in a finite amount of time, no matter how large, has to have been there all along.

 

[RickG]

I would expect the natural world to be able to be quantified using mathematics if it was created by an intelligent being because design and information can only come from an intelligent source.

I would have no expectation of the natural world being quantified using mathematics if it were the result of random chance.

It is neither an intelligent source or random chance, it's physics.

 

[mathetes123]

It is neither an intelligent source or random chance, it's physics.

It's physics is not a satisfactory answer.

 

[Lion Hearted Man]

The proof is the Law of Causation. It's been proven bajillions of times. Isaac Newton, IIRC.

That said, the Law of Causation is a law about the properties of the Universe. The Universe exhibits the Law of Causation. God, as Creator of the Universe, may or may not be subject to the Law of Causation. We do not know, and probably never will.

Actually, the "law" of causation is an assumption. It's a decent assumption, because it underlies all of science, but it's an assumption. It can never be "proven".

But even if you take the assumption of causation for the universe, making God exempt from requiring a cause doesn't achieve anything. It's simpler to state that the universe doesn't require a cause. If you claim everything requires a cause, but then add that God doesn't require a cause, why not just say that the universe doesn't require a cause? It's really that simple. Saying God doesn't require a cause is completely arbitrary.

Plus, if the universe didn't have a beginning, it doesn't require a cause in the first place.

Carl Sagan puts it more eloquently than I in the first minute of this video:

[youtube]4E-_DdX8Ke0[/youtube]

 

[mathetes123]

Actually, the "law" of causation is an assumption. It's a decent assumption, because it underlies all of science, but it's an assumption. It can never be "proven".

But even if you take the assumption of causation for the universe, making God exempt from requiring a cause doesn't achieve anything. It's simpler to state that the universe doesn't require a cause. If you claim everything requires a cause, but then add that God doesn't require a cause, why not just say that the universe doesn't require a cause? It's really that simple. Saying God doesn't require a cause is completely arbitrary.

Plus, if the universe didn't have a beginning, it doesn't require a cause in the first place.

Carl Sagan puts it more eloquently than I in the first minute of this video:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-_DdX8Ke0">YouTube Link</a>

Only things that have a beginning require a cause. The universe had a beginning, therefore, it requires a cause. God did not have a beginning. God created time, lives outside of time, and is not subject to the limitations of his creation

The implications of the bib bang theory is that the earth did have a beginning, thus requiring a cause.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I admire your faith, because of you can believe that, it certainly isn't about the evidence.

Well, I have no evidence that there is a designer other than you telling me there must have been one because you find the basic physical laws to be "designed".

Remember you are looking at the universe from the point of view of an item that can exist within the universe. If you were something that could not exist within the framework of the physical laws as they developed you wouldn't be here to appreciate them by definition.

The fact that Pauling's rules explain why crystals form the way they do and chemistry has rules that dictate how things work, doesn't say anything about design, but everything about the fact that those things which exist exist because they follow the physical laws.

I can conceive of a "perpetual motion machine" but it doesn't exist precisely because it violates fundamental thermodynamic rules.

But in some alternate universe perhaps these rules could be different.

People who espouse design either have to:

1. Espouse design from the appearance of nature (which is clearly dismissable because we see many natural processes that do not require an intelligent Designer (as I demonstrated with the crystal example)

2. Espouse desing from the general universal principles that there are physical "laws" hence must show a designer.

#2 is harder to dismiss but contains almost no actual information. You know absolutely as much about that designer as I do. Which is "nothing".

It is a philosophical dead end. Just as the "ultimate origins of the universe" are. What happened "before time"?

Some people say "God". Well, what does that mean? Does it mean Jahweh God? Does it mean Al'lah?

Lots of people came up with lots of very specific rules about what "god" the creator wanted from us for us to do, many quite different from each other. This concept was invented to explain a world hard to explain without observational science.

Science fills in the gaps suddenly "god" gets a lot more "theoretical" and impossible to understand within the confines of the "universe". Suddenly God is pushed so far out of the picture that he can only be understood as some sort of hypothetical "creator" with no more evidence than the fact that things exist.

I'd call that putting the concept together incorrectly. And a hallmark that the idea of God pre-dates any concept of "design". So to have to fall back to an unverifiable "design" and the "re-build" God out from that will be rather more difficult.

I don't know if there is a designer or not. Not sure I actually care. If it were important that this being get my "worship" and undying love then perhaps that being could be more directly experienced as a personal god to me. But he's not.

If there is a designer, fine. I don't "need" him, just as I don't "need" existence myself. I didn't ask to be put in this universe.

It is what it is. When you get the point of a philosophical dead end, anything beyond that is pure intellectual onanism.

imho.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

At one point theologians tried to argue that the ultimate thing -- i.e. the one that didn't come from anything else -- had to be "necessary." A necessary entity is one that by pure logic has to exist. I find that a bizarre concept.

Actually it is not so bizarre at all. The thing is, the necessary entity ... we don't know so much about it. There is nothing that keeps it from being consistent with, say uhmm, materialism.