And that's because there are only three things we can be absolutely certain of:
1. 1 + 1 = 2. It will always be two. Irregardless of experience. And as long as we agree that it can not be 11 (eleven)
2. We are all slaves to our senses
3. No one is leaving this place alive

 

 

 

I don't have enough faith (it would require a staggering amount) to believe that the universe came from nothing. Impossible.

We can be certain that only nothing can come from nothing. Something cannot come from absolutely nothing. What we name things does not change anything. I name the something which always was: "God". 

 

26 minutes ago, Fielder said:

Something cannot come from absolutely nothing.

Nothing isn't absolute, though, is it?

0 = (+1) + (-1)  = matter + antimatter

So, when our universe was created with a small excess of matter, another universe was created simultaneously with an equal excess of antimatter.

Perhaps, out of respect to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I should have said:

0 = (+42) + (-42)

Edited August 30, 20223 yr by dmwalker

"...talking or thinking about the big bang is pointless."

so is flight simming.

 

But it's fun to discuss it.

I look at the universe as a big expanding balloon.  The kid who started blowing up this universe is going to do one of three things.

He's going to blow it up until it pops and nobody knows what will happen then.  The second Big Bang maybe.

Or he's going to tie off the mouthpiece and the universe will stop expanding and become a steady state universe.

Or he's going to let go of it and let all the air out and we will experience The Big Suck.

Noel

11 hours ago, bofhlusr said:

And that's because there are only three things we can be absolutely certain of:
1. 1 + 1 = 2. It will always be two. Irregardless of experience. And as long as we agree that it can not be 11 (eleven)

The concepts of "1", addition, and equivalence are human creations. 1 + 1= 2 only because we have invented and defined a set of rules and notation that we (mostly) agree on. For example, 1 + 1 = 10 in a binary or base 2 system - and we could just as easily live in world where we define 1 + 1 to be equal to "orange". 

We created our current set of mathematical rules through discovery and experimentation. 

That same process of discovery and experimentation is what leads us to theorize about the origin and nature of the Universe. 

Quote

2. We are all slaves to our senses

But our senses are shaped by our knowledge. When you look up in the sky at night, do you see pin-point holes in a celestial blanket that covers Earth, or do you see giant balls of gas, similar to our own sun, but very far away? The more you know about the universe, the more your perception of it changes. 

Quote

3. No one is leaving this place alive

If there was no big bang, and the Universe is truly infinite, then you WILL make it out of here alive - in the sense that given an infinite amount of time, with an infinite amount of matter, the unique combination of atoms that make you who you are will eventually reassemble in the exact same configuration - with 100% certainty - as certain as 1+1=2.

All just food for thought.

1 hour ago, Fielder said:

We can be certain that only nothing can come from nothing.

No, we really can't be certain of that.

1 hour ago, Fielder said:

Something cannot come from absolutely nothing.

We don't know for certain if that is the case either.

We have no examples of this having occurred, but we cannot be certain that will always be the case, because we don't know everything about physics, chemistry, biology, the universe and so on. In short, there are loads of things we do not know yet and quite probably some things we will never know. For example, before we even venture off this planet, there are still reckoned to be a vast number of creatures on this one which are still unknown to us, which in universal terms, highlights the infancy of our knowledge.

So, what you are using there, is known as the Holmesian fallacy, sometimes called the Process Of Elimination Fallacy, but more correctly described as an appeal to omniscience.

It's summed up in a lot of Sherlock Homes depictions by the notion that 'if one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth'. This sounds very clever of course and is intended to make the Sherlock Holmes character sound super-intelligent, but the problem is that it is a completely fallacious bit of reasoning. It would be a true observation if we were ever in a position to be able to eliminate with absolute certainty, literally every potential possibility and be sure that we had done so, but this cannot possibly ever be the case, because none of us know, what we do not know. So sometimes, the only correct answer to a question is, 'we don't know'.

In any case, If you think you can't get something from nothing, you've not met my ex missus, because she absolutely can conjure up an argument out of nowhere.

Edited August 30, 20223 yr by Chock

The fact that this OP wrote the fake word irregardless means this post is irrelevant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sorry, had too! 

2 hours ago, Fielder said:

 

I don't have enough faith (it would require a staggering amount) to believe that the universe came from nothing. Impossible.

We can be certain that only nothing can come from nothing. Something cannot come from absolutely nothing. What we name things does not change anything. I name the something which always was: "God". 

 

There's a passage by a Jesuit priest (Fr. Spitzer) that say the same thing. He proposed:

---

"If the rate of expansion of the universe is greater than zero --something virtually all physicists agree on --at the end of the day we will reach an absolute beginning point prior to which the universe and multiverse (a combination of universes) were nothing. Physical reality itself was nothing, and the one thing we know about nothing is that it's... nothing.

The second thing we know about nothing is that nothing can only do nothing, and if the only thing nothing can do is nothing, then the whole of physical reality, configured as universe or multiverse, was nothing. It could never have moved itself to something by itself, because the only thing that it could do when it was nothing is nothing.

There is something else, and that something else has to transcend the universe and be powerful enough to create it… "

---

The problem with the hypothesis is that it assumes several things eg. the universe is expanding because physicists agree on it, a 'prime mover' exists, etc.

At the end of the day... it boils down to one thing... having 'faith'.

But 'FAITH' is just avoiding the unanswered questions in the here and now. All faith does is Forward All Issues To Heaven (FAITH).

Some believe faith (eg.worship and prayers) is nothing more than a psychological invention to cope with our mortality.
 

2 hours ago, dmwalker said:

Nothing isn't absolute, though, is it?

0 = (+1) + (-1)  = matter + antimatter

So, when our universe was created with a small excess of matter, another universe was created simultaneously with an equal excess of antimatter.

Perhaps, out of respect to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I should have said:

0 = (+42) + (-42)

Created by whom?

And why?  As a hobby because of boredom? To prove to oneself or to solicit admiration? Why. 

2 hours ago, hs118 said:

"...talking or thinking about the big bang is pointless."

so is flight simming.

 

I agree. But they have something in common: entertainment.

1 hour ago, enright said:

The concepts of "1", addition, and equivalence are human creations. 1 + 1= 2 only because we have invented and defined a set of rules and notation that we (mostly) agree on. For example, 1 + 1 = 10 in a binary or base 2 system - and we could just as easily live in world where we define 1 + 1 to be equal to "orange". 

We created our current set of mathematical rules through discovery and experimentation. 

That same process of discovery and experimentation is what leads us to theorize about the origin and nature of the Universe. 

But our senses are shaped by our knowledge. When you look up in the sky at night, do you see pin-point holes in a celestial blanket that covers Earth, or do you see giant balls of gas, similar to our own sun, but very far away? The more you know about the universe, the more your perception of it changes. 

If there was no big bang, and the Universe is truly infinite, then you WILL make it out of here alive - in the sense that given an infinite amount of time, with an infinite amount of matter, the unique combination of atoms that make you who you are will eventually reassemble in the exact same configuration - with 100% certainty - as certain as 1+1=2.

All just food for thought.

I have a nice T-shirt that say:

There are 10 kinds of people:
1. Those who know binary
2. And those who don't

"Our senses shaped by our knowledge" - is kinda a chicken or egg type of thing? Because our knowledge comes from our senses?

7 minutes ago, bofhlusr said:

Created by whom?

I should probably have said "came into existence" because I have no idea how or why except that I don't believe there was a "whom" but, more likely a "what".

58 minutes ago, Chock said:

In any case, If you think you can't get something from nothing, you've not met my ex missus, because she absolutely can conjure up an argument out of nowhere.

Genius. Very true. That should be the 4th item in the list. Lol.

"COGITO ERGO SUM"