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Just to stimulate more conversation:

If nothing existed before everything existed, then everything has always existed.

That's a matter of semantics.

I had to ponder this for a while.  And I can almost make logical sense out of it, but something doesn't come together.  If I understand what you're getting at, before everything existed, there was nothing.  This would include the very condition of existence itself.  Or in another way of looking at, the very condition of nothingness itself could not exist in nothing.

I'm not sure that leads to everything always existing.  I think there's a meaningless loop in your reasoning, or perhaps some semantic confusion.  I dunno.

It's a fallacy of Argumentative leap, or Non Sequitur. It jumps to a conclusion with no immediate bases for drawing the proposed conclusion provided internally within the argument. Solitary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs

An hour and four minutes, or you can buy the book of the same name. Krauss does about as good a job as anyone of putting the "nothing" concept in perspective.

Sometimes a claim or argument is so complicated it's hard to grasp.  Sometimes it's nebulous, and I mistake nebulous for complicated.  But I try fairly hard to grasp the issue.  Sometimes this leads to arguments and explanations that are too complicated to follow.  It's like I take a nonsense claim, and work so hard to understand it that I am tempted by nonsense explanations.  There's always that feeling, however, that something is just out of reach.  Maybe there's a name of a logical fallacy for this, or maybe not because it's not common enough to label.  Maybe you could just call it confusion, but it's something I can get trapped by.

 :eek: To think everything came out of nothing is as insane as thinking a God always existed in my opinion. If religion had said this there would be no religion. This is basically what Marilyn Voss Savant said who has the highest recorded IQ, and I agree with her on this. I don't care if all the mathematics and scientist agree on this, it is beyond ridiculous. Even space itself is not nothing. In fact, it's composed of particles like everything else, even if they are anti-particles, and particles that annihilate each other and form particles of energy. Solitary

0 is nothing
-1 is something
1 is something
something + something = something
Then since 0 = -1 + 1, then nothing = something.

0+something is something. I get it.  :biggrin2:

Quote from: Atheon on March 04, 2015, 02:34:42 PM
0 is nothing
-1 is something
1 is something
something + something = something
Then since 0 = -1 + 1, then nothing = something.

I think both sides of the last equation are nothing.  They are just different representations for nothing.

I've got a call in to Stephen Hawking.  He's kind of "iffy" about returning my calls, but we can always hope.  Sometimes I ask him a simple question, and I get the most complicated darned answer.

Before there was everything . Was Chuck Norris . Duh

Quote from: leo on March 04, 2015, 04:03:45 PM
Before there was everything . Was Chuck Norris . Duh

LOL Nice avatar, leo

Quote from: PickelledEggs on March 04, 2015, 04:29:45 PM
LOL Nice avatar, leo

Thanks . I posted it  yesterday in the last person to post wins thread reply. I really like this pic.

Quote from: leo on March 04, 2015, 04:44:01 PM
                                                                                                                                                   Thanks . I posted yesterday in the last person to post wins thread reply. I really like this pic.

Yeah. It's a great avatar. Too bad you won't be winning the thread

Sent from your mom.

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 04, 2015, 08:28:33 AM
Just to stimulate more conversation:

If nothing existed before everything existed, then everything has always existed.

Thinking about shit like this makes my brain hurt.

(http://api.ning.com/files/nc61tuPNc3NRDrEe99C7ZBiC*KgB5pOaFAlXd*CMhSIyVSnQPBKKE-x7g1rVY2KRSLUX-ZHleFZFlNYfZt5NyEeCP7E-Miph/mybrainhurts.jpg)

Quote from: stromboli on March 04, 2015, 11:26:41 AM
An hour and four minutes, or you can buy the book of the same name. Krauss does about as good a job as anyone of putting the "nothing" concept in perspective.

TL;DR

Everything is nothing.

Quote from: Solitary on March 04, 2015, 11:13:54 AM
It's a fallacy of Argumentative leap, or Non Sequitur. It jumps to a conclusion with no immediate bases for drawing the proposed conclusion provided internally within the argument. Solitary

I agree. Even the idea of nothing existing before everything now existing is a fallacious one. However, maybe it could be tweaked a little.

Quote from: stromboli on March 04, 2015, 11:26:41 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs

An hour and four minutes, or you can buy the book of the same name. Krauss does about as good a job as anyone of putting the "nothing" concept in perspective.

That was a wonderful video.  While I didn't understand everything, I understood a great deal.  And there was so much stuff I didn't know before, which was verbalized in a meaningful way.  Krauss is a very gifted speaker.  Really something; Fascinating.

From the video above:  If nothing is composed of quantum fluctuations popping in and out of existence, then for me, the question of how the universe started encounters a problem.  Supposedly time did not exist before the universe.  If the universe came from nothing, and if nothing is composed of quantum fluctuations, then how can you have a fluctuation before the universe, if that context was without time?  Doesn't a fluctuation depend on the existence of time?

Hello. The Holy Bible perfectly explains the creation process; from start to finish, and it also explained what happened before "there was everything", and it also explained in great detail how everything will end, too. But I am very curious about the atheism religion and what it's beliefs are? Thanks everybody.

Is it spring break yet? Is bible school in recess?

Hello. It is not spring break yet for me. I was always a very good student in Bible School, I was always in the top grade percentages of the class and I did very good. How good did you do in Bible School? Does the atheism religion have some type of holy text education equivalent?

Please watch the Lawrence Krauss video above. He is a particle physicist. He is very smart. He is one of a few men who have created models of the beginning of the universe that did not require a god. You, on the other hand, can't prove him wrong. We know this because others have tried.

Hello. Who is that? I don't know who that is. I will watch the video, but I am skeptical of your premise. You say that nobody could disprove his early models of a universe without God. I beg to differ. You also seem to be implying that he is right without any proof at all. You just say 'he is right and nobody can disprove him', and that's it. That would be true if someone.... anyone, had ever disproved creation theory, Christianity as a whole, or God's existence. But nobody has.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-creationism-on-cosmos/

QuoteAstrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson continues to challenge long-held religious beliefs on his weekly prime time science show on Fox, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. At the beginning of Sunday’s episode, Tyson offered up a compellingly straight-forward reason why the Earth cannot possibly be 6,500 years old, as creationists believe it to be.

As Tyson explained to his viewers, we measure Earth’s distance from other planets and galaxies in the universe by the speed of light. On average, Neptune is four light-hours away from Earth, meaning the Neptune we see when we look through a telescope is as it appears four hours ago.

For another example, Tyson looked at the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant that just happens to be 6,500 light-years away from Earth. This means that when we view the Crab Nebula through the telescope, we are seeing it 6,500 years in the past. Because there are objects beyond that point, we can see with our own telescope-enabled eyes that the universe is older than 6,500 years.



“If the universe were only 6,500 years old, how could we see the light from anything more distant than the Crab Nebula?” Tyson asks. “We couldn’t. There wouldn’t have been enough time for the light to get to Earth from anywhere farther away than 6,500 light-years in any direction. That’s just enough time for light to travel through a tiny portion of our Milky Way galaxy.”

“To believe in a universe as young as 6 or 7,000 years old is to extinguish the light from most of the galaxy,” he continues. “Not to mention the light from all the hundred billion other galaxies in the observable universe.”

If the earth were 6,500 years old or 10,000 years old, we could only see 6,500 to 10,000 light years from earth. Because of our telescopes like Hubble, we see light from millions, billions of years in the past. This is how we measure time on a universal scale.

http://biologos.org/questions/ages-of-the-earth-and-universe

QuoteConclusion
Many different and complementary scientific measurements have established with near certainty that the universe and the Earth are billions of years old. Layers in glaciers show a history much longer than 10,000 years, and radiometric dating places the formation of the Earth at 4.5 billion years. Light from galaxies is reaching us billions of years after it left, and the expansion rate of the universe dates its age to 13.7 billion years. These are just a sampling of the types of evidence for the great age of the Earth and the universe; see the resources below for more.

Quote from: stromboli on March 05, 2015, 10:22:53 PM
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/neil-degrasse-tyson-disproves-creationism-on-cosmos/

If the earth were 6,500 years old or 10,000 years old, we could only see 6,500 to 10,000 light years from earth. Because of our telescopes like Hubble, we see light from millions, billions of years in the past. This is how we measure time on a universal scale.

http://biologos.org/questions/ages-of-the-earth-and-universe

Hello. Unfortunately, it seems there is an issue posting new replies at the moment. I don't even know if this will go through. I apologize. I look forward to addressing each points the followers of the atheism religion make - in due time, of course. Thanks everybody.

Quote from: winterland78 on March 05, 2015, 10:39:58 PM
Hello. Unfortunately, it seems there is an issue posting new replies at the moment. I don't even know if this will go through. I apologize. I look forward to addressing each points the followers of the atheism religion make - in due time, of course. Thanks everybody.

Start with this so the thread does not get hijacked:

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 04, 2015, 08:28:33 AM
Just to stimulate more conversation:

If nothing existed before everything existed, then everything has always existed.

I won't even attempt to watch the video with my internet speeds. I'll hear Lawrence Kraus another way.

Thanks.

Quote from: winterland78 on March 05, 2015, 09:58:43 PM
Hello. Who is that? I don't know who that is. I will watch the video, but I am skeptical of your premise. You say that nobody could disprove his early models of a universe without God. I beg to differ. You also seem to be implying that he is right without any proof at all. You just say 'he is right and nobody can disprove him', and that's it. That would be true if someone.... anyone, had ever disproved creation theory, Christianity as a whole, or God's existence. But nobody has.

Atheism religion ? LOL you are funny

Quote from: winterland78 on March 05, 2015, 10:39:58 PM
Hello. Unfortunately, it seems there is an issue posting new replies at the moment. I don't even know if this will go through. I apologize. I look forward to addressing each points the followers of the atheism religion make - in due time, of course. Thanks everybody.

Quote from: winterland78 on March 05, 2015, 09:58:43 PM
Hello. Who is that? I don't know who that is. I will watch the video, but I am skeptical of your premise. You say that nobody could disprove his early models of a universe without God. I beg to differ. You also seem to be implying that he is right without any proof at all. You just say 'he is right and nobody can disprove him', and that's it. That would be true if someone.... anyone, had ever disproved creation theory, Christianity as a whole, or God's existence. But nobody has.

Atheism religion ? LOL you are funny

Yes, I request information on the atheism religion. Can you provide any for me, please?

Quote from: winterland78 on March 05, 2015, 10:53:19 PM
Yes, I request information on the atheism religion. Can you provide any for me, please?

Atheism is merely a lack of a belief in a god. Religion requires a god. Therefore Atheism is not a religion?
Any more questions? I'm bored sooo... yeah  :eyes:

Hello. I do not think that is true. All indications show me that your beliefs are a religion. Followers of the atheism religion have said it is a religion and online results also confirm it. Can you please provide me some holy text citations of the atheism religion? What is the name of your holy text? What are your beliefs? Like I said, my research shows me that followers of the atheism religion are a minority of the population, and they seem to be hated by the majority of the population. This even seems to be true for western societies, too. Why? Thanks everybody.

P.S: I also cannot seem to reply to any threads in the 'introduction' section for some reason, so I apologize to any users there who were awaiting my replies.

Quote from: winterland78 on March 05, 2015, 11:06:45 PM
Hello. I do not think that is true. All indications show me that your beliefs are a religion. Followers of the atheism religion have said it is a religion and online results also confirm it. Can you please provide me some holy text citations of the atheism religion? What is the name of your holy text? What are your beliefs? Like I said, my research shows me that followers of the atheism religion are a minority of the population, and they seem to be hated by the majority of the population. This even seems to be true for western societies, too. Why? Thanks everybody.

P.S: I also cannot seem to reply to any threads in the 'introduction' section for some reason, so I apologize to any users there who were awaiting my replies.

We had a holy text, but I threw it out of the window. We are hated because we are misunderstood. So can I haz research on how you found out we are a religion?

Side note; The OriginalPost got me there for a second there, but I used it on my mom and the reaction was funny. So thanks undercoverbrother

Quite simply, describe time "beginning" without using words that require time to exist in order to have meaning. You will run into quite a few problems.

Hello. I already gave you the reasons, and told you about the research. I already did that.

"We are misunderstood" seems to be a cop-out - no excuse. I still wish to have a good inter-faith dialogue, but followers of the atheist religion seem to be hated, I just can't put my finger on the reason though. I wish someone here would break ranks and just tell me. Thanks everybody.

Quote from: winterland78 on March 05, 2015, 10:39:58 PM
I apologize. I look forward to addressing each points the followers of the atheism religion make - in due time, of course. Thanks everybody.

[mod]Oh you're one of those.... nevermind. I retract my last post giving you an extra chance. If you think you're going to come in here acting like Mr. Forum-Celebrity-Theist, you can just go. I can see this is going to go nowhere.

Bye.[/mod]

(https://i.imgur.com/g6TntoN.gif)

Thanks. I thought I was going to have one of THOSE conversations.

Quote from: SNP1 on March 05, 2015, 11:18:22 PM
Quite simply, describe time "beginning" without using words that require time to exist in order to have meaning. You will run into quite a few problems.

The beginning is when something starts.

Wait. Let me start over.

The beginning is that point at which matter originally existed where time, space, and matter...

Never mind.

Everything that exists now is made of what has existed for eternity, whatever that may be, even God if you want to name "'IT" God. So that kind of God is something no buddy could know what it is, and foolish to speculate about it with not a shred of reliable evidence accept ancient Scriptures that would mean they were written by people smarter than all of mankind since, because it is obvious by it ambiguities and idiocy, silliness, magic that any good magician can do now, it couldn't have been written by the God of Judeo, Christian, and Islamic dogma, or any other superstitious god based on the same evidence. This whole argument for God, or gods, is an Appeal to authority, emotions, ignorance, and many other fallacies in sound logic and critical thinking. Ignorance is not knowledge by replacing it with a magical ""MAN" in the sky.  :naughty:  :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao::wall: :fU:

Atheism is a religion by one definition of religion---so what does that mean if religion is correct atheism is wrong or vice versa? This is a fallacy if you don't know without evidence and I think I do without evidence, and you do accept from ancient Scriptures by ignorant men that were sheep herders, I'm right and you are wrong, or you are right and I am wrong? I'll stick with the evidence like a court of law does until it can be shown with reliable evidence that a God can, and does exist. Why is that so hard to do? Solitary

Gonna try to drag this back toward its original topic before we were so rudely diverted by PleaseModMeOutOfExistance78...

The concept of something outside of everything -- that is, nothing (by which I don't mean that nothing is something, it's just something that isn't everything and I think my brain is melting so I'm going to just let it go at that) -- is exceedingly difficult to get your head around because the default mental image is dark, empty space.

Which it is, after you take the space away, too.  I once told someone that to imagine what the universe looked like before the Big Bang, first imagine completely empty space, and then take the space away, and I would swear I saw smoke coming out of his ear.

Real conversation I once had trying to explain the expansion of the universe:

Me: (having resorted to the raisin bread analogy, which I don't really like but it's more useful than most others) ...and all the raisins are moving away from each other, because the space, the dough around them is expanding while they remain the same size.
He: But then it's all expanding into the kitchen.
Me: The kitchen doesn't matter.  Take the kitchen away.
He: Then it's expanding into the back yard.
Me: :hang:

I'm going to go with the mellow long toke answer: "Shit just is, bro."

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 04, 2015, 08:28:33 AM
Just to stimulate more conversation:

If nothing existed before everything existed, then everything has always existed.

How do you know nothing existed before everything existed?

Space expands and there is a red shift assuming that light is like sound when it is a different kind of wave. Next, it is assumed that gravity has no effect on the frequency of light waves. Also, there are galaxies that are blue shifted. And finally, it is assumed that there has to be a creation and Einstein was originally wrong. What about gravitational lensing that could make it appear that space is expanding. And what about the great attractor that we are moving towards and not away from?  Solitary

Quote from: Solitary on March 16, 2015, 11:34:54 AM
Space expands and there is a red shift assuming that light is like sound when it is a different kind of wave. Next, it is assumed that gravity has no effect on the frequency of light waves. Also, there are galaxies that are blue shifted. And finally, it is assumed that there has to be a creation and Einstein was originally wrong. What about gravitational lensing that could make it appear that space is expanding. And what about the great attractor that we are moving towards and not away from?  Solitary

It's the expansion of space that causes the redshift.  Since the speed of light in vacuum is constant, since it can't slow down, something else hast to give, and that's the frequency.  So it's wrong to state that gravity has no effect on light's frequency -- it has a definite effect, and it has been measured.

The Great Attractor is thought to be a local (on the scale of the universe) feature.  Gravity can overwhelm the expansive tendencies of space (whether space is innately expansive, or whether it's movement left over from the Big Bang) on local scales.  And recent observations suggest that it might not be as massive as thought, and the gravitational source is the Shapley Supercluster, which lies beyond the Great Attractor and is thought to be even more massive.

In any case, it's an active area of astronomical and cosmological research and in no way contradicts theories about the expansion of the universe.

I

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 16, 2015, 10:21:20 AM
How do you know nothing existed before everything existed?

I don't. The question is premised with "if."

Quote from: SGOS on March 04, 2015, 03:47:29 PM
I've got a call in to Stephen Hawking.  He's kind of "iffy" about returning my calls, but we can always hope.  Sometimes I ask him a simple question, and I get the most complicated darned answer.

Try asking him a more complicated question - maybe he'll give you a more simple answer.

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 17, 2015, 07:10:39 AM
I
I don't. The question is premised with "if."

Which way are you betting?

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 17, 2015, 05:43:59 PM
Which way are you betting?

I'm betting on everything always existing in either seed-form or in actuality. I know that doesn't say anything more than the obvious.

The question may then become one of how much seed-form or actuality. To me, it seems that the closer one agrees with the universe always existing in seed-form would seem to be more likely to be theistic in their viewâ€"a god being the ultimate seed-form. Likewise, those agreeing more extremely with the universe always existing might be more non-theistic or maybe even pantheistic.

It is just a thought experiment. Anyway, the thought experiment, I think, shows that nothing is able to conceive of anything and that everything cannot likewise be conceived by unreality. Therefore, is the universe the first and last, ultimate seed, or is a God the ultimate source for all things? Either way one looks at it, there is single cause for all things. If Carl Sagan was correct; the universe is all that there ever was, then the universe is God. However, I can understand why others may not appreciate such a way of describing this.

BEFORE THERE WAS ANYTHING THERE WAS OLD GUY RIDING A WEENIEOBEEL INTO A RED GIANT AND FROM THAT THE BIG BANG WAS CREATED

Quote from: Draconic Aiur on March 18, 2015, 01:14:20 AM
BEFORE THERE WAS ANYTHING THERE WAS OLD GUY RIDING A WEENIEOBEEL INTO A RED GIANT AND FROM THAT THE BIG BANG WAS CREATED

Got video of that?

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 17, 2015, 06:07:23 PM
I'm betting on everything always existing in either seed-form or in actuality. I know that doesn't say anything more than the obvious.

Fair enough.

QuoteThe question may then become one of how much seed-form or actuality. To me, it seems that the closer one agrees with the universe always existing in seed-form would seem to be more likely to be theistic in their viewâ€"a god being the ultimate seed-form. Likewise, those agreeing more extremely with the universe always existing might be more non-theistic or maybe even pantheistic.

It is just a thought experiment. Anyway, the thought experiment, I think, shows that nothing is able to conceive of anything and that everything cannot likewise be conceived by unreality. Therefore, is the universe the first and last, ultimate seed, or is a God the ultimate source for all things? Either way one looks at it, there is single cause for all things. If Carl Sagan was correct; the universe is all that there ever was, then the universe is God. However, I can understand why others may not appreciate such a way of describing this.

My question to believers: If God is the cause of the Universe, because everything has a cause, what caused God?

I usually get a special pleading in return.

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 18, 2015, 08:09:59 AM
Fair enough. My question to believers: If God is the cause of the Universe, because everything has a cause, what caused God?

I usually get a special pleading in return.

The question itself seems like Special Pleading to me. And no! I'm not a Christian or a theist.

The question pleads a special instance of faith to believe God must be included in "everything" as no justification is shown for why the Christian is not allowed to do the same thing when they ask you to take their message by faith.

If that is not Special Pleading, it's still intellectually dishonest.

What do you think? Am I correct in what I am saying?

I'm just an uneducated hick. but it seems to me that if God isn't included in everything, then God is, by definition, nothing.

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 20, 2015, 11:57:41 PM
The question itself seems like Special Pleading to me. And no! I'm not a Christian or a theist.

The question pleads a special instance of faith to believe God must be included in "everything" as no justification is shown for why the Christian is not allowed to do the same thing when they ask you to take their message by faith.

If that is not Special Pleading, it's still intellectually dishonest.

What do you think? Am I correct in what I am saying?

Much depends on context, so you need to know what the theist or the atheist is saying.

"Goddidit" is special pleading if follows a claim that everything must come from something.  If he is contradicting an atheist, who said, "The universe has always been there," it is special pleading because he's saying "Everything comes from something except God."  He's saying God is a special case, but the universe is not.  It's also a double standard.

"The universe has always been there" is not special pleading unless it's been established that everything must come from something.  It's more of an unsubstantiated claim.  The problem is that most of the time, the atheist will say, "I don't know where the universe came from," and the theist tries to get him to say maybe it was always there, at which time the theist launches the argument from cause, but ends the debate at his convenience convenience when he plays the God card.

As it turns out, evidence is now emerging that the universe might indeed come from nothing, even without the God magic.  Although the jury is still out.

Actually, the entire argument is fucked up, no matter which side you want to take, because no one knows where anything came from.  At least at this time.  Indeed, it might be that the makin's of the universe have always existed in some simple form, or that God has always been there in some simple form.  We can agree that there is a universe, but we can't agree on a god.  And the God issue is the real debate.  Where the universe comes from is a red herring manufactured by the theist to support a belief in God.

Quote from: SGOS on March 21, 2015, 02:06:34 PM
...

It sounds like you may be for an intrinsic cause. Which is it? Intrinsic or extrinsic?

Did I say, "uneducated hick?" I meant "poet!" Here's one that was inspired by this thread. I've been working on it for about an hour and a half:

Quote from: stromboli on March 04, 2015, 11:26:41 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs

An hour and four minutes, or you can buy the book of the same name. Krauss does about as good a job as anyone of putting the "nothing" concept in perspective.

I am getting into fights over what QM implies. Some have taken the "hologram" word and I think are jumping the gun thinking that makes us a cognition caused universe. I'd say if Lawrence is saying we came from nothing, which QM does not rule out, then why would anyone even need this "hologram" to make us a bunch of 1s and 0s. Add to that Sagan rightfully saying we should not be so narcissistic to think we are important to "all this". I am seeing some who love science to simply replace the old mythological desert god cognition with a si fi watchmaker.

I think "all this" is simply a giant weather pattern, something before, or nothing before, or even a "hologram". I still don't think anything we find out will require a cognition, be it a god or cosmic Bill Gates. If he is willing to say this came from nothing, which I would be fine with too, then we still are not a program in any human like sense. I think some fans of science or si fi are doing the same anthropomorphic projection we know humans can do like when they thought volcanos were gods. No matter what we find out we are not special in all this.

I like that "we are all fucked". SOOOOOOO TRUE.

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 21, 2015, 02:11:08 PM
It sounds like you may be for an intrinsic cause. Which is it? Intrinsic or extrinsic?

First, I don't know what that means.  I know the definitions of intrinsic and extrinsic, but I've never heard them in the context of the formation of the universe.

Second, I really don't have enough information to form an opinion.  I'm reading a book about it right now, but I haven't got into the meat of it yet.

I think I could go either way 1. caused by something outside itself  2. a change of state from something already there.

How bout you?

Quote from: SGOS on March 21, 2015, 04:47:49 PM
First, I don't know what that means.  I know the definitions of intrinsic and extrinsic, but I've never heard them in the context of the formation of the universe.

Second, I really don't have enough information to form an opinion.  I'm reading a book about it right now, but I haven't got into the meat of it yet.

I think I could go either way 1. caused by something outside itself  2. a change of state from something already there.

How bout you?

Not sure. Leaning toward intrinsic.

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 21, 2015, 04:50:27 PM
Not sure. Leaning toward intrinsic.

It would be easy, if we knew the universe existed in an ultraverse, but the general consensus seems to be that there is no such thing.

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 20, 2015, 11:57:41 PM
The question itself seems like Special Pleading to me. And no! I'm not a Christian or a theist.

The question pleads a special instance of faith to believe God must be included in "everything" as no justification is shown for why the Christian is not allowed to do the same thing when they ask you to take their message by faith.

If that is not Special Pleading, it's still intellectually dishonest.

What do you think? Am I correct in what I am saying?

I'm just a simple country boy...

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 21, 2015, 08:03:53 PM
I'm just a simple country boy...

I'm not much either. Graduated from a class of 53 people.

Quote from: undercoverbrother on March 21, 2015, 08:05:19 PM
I'm not much either. Graduated from a class of 53 people.

33 here….hey. I win. LOL….er…..yeah…33 kids.. today that is more like the special ed class,,,,ha ha,,,er,,,,,hmmm

Quote from: aitm on March 21, 2015, 08:16:23 PM
33 here….hey. I win. LOL….er…..yeah…33 kids.. today that is more like the special ed class,,,,ha ha,,,er,,,,,hmmm

You guys graduated? High school dropout here. I got a GED in 1984, with a group of about twelve.

I graduated from high school in a class of 1200, but the first 8 years of grade school, my class size in the same town averaged around 22.  I was totally lost when I got to high school, although I did adjust.

Then I moved to a small town in Montana.  My friends would frequently attend class reunions.  The high school they went to was small enough that a reunion for the class of 1961 would attract and welcome alumni from 1958 to 1964.  And they would have a reunion every 10 years for each class.

On the other hand, a high school reunion for me has no interest because I wouldn't know anyone.  A reunion for my grade school graduating class, I would probably go to.  I'd love to see those folks again, but grade schools don't seem to have reunions.

Quote from: SGOS on March 04, 2015, 08:55:19 AM
I had to ponder this for a while.  And I can almost make logical sense out of it, but something doesn't come together.  If I understand what you're getting at, before everything existed, there was nothing.  This would include the very condition of existence itself.  Or in another way of looking at, the very condition of nothingness itself could not exist in nothing.

I'm not sure that leads to everything always existing.  I think there's a meaningless loop in your reasoning, or perhaps some semantic confusion.  I dunno.

Instead of trying to insert something into the gap  of nothing, know that the why is not as important as figuring out the how. On the QM level it really is not that different than you already accept that you were nothing before you were born and will be nothing after you die. Why should the universe be any different in nature no matter what we are currently trying to figure out about it. The freakish nature of nothing the way Lawrence describing it is far more awe inspiring than trying to insert my importance in all this.

I see all this as a giant weather pattern. It changes too just like the seasons on our planet.

This is my uneducated take on it:

"Before" assumes the existence of time. Time only exists if there is motion. Motion only takes place when there is substance. There is no nothing, because nothing is the lack of substance, and a lack of substance, by definition, does not exist, because substance in motion is all that defines time and therefore existence. Time begins when motion begins. The state of Unity is the beginning point on a ray. It occupies no amount of time. Motion and differentiation occur simultaneously, as the prime incident, and the ray has continued on from there to this day.

In other words the universe has always been in motion because time did not exist without motion.

Quote from: Solitary on March 04, 2015, 02:15:00 PM
:eek: To think everything came out of nothing is as insane as thinking a God always existed in my opinion. If religion had said this there would be no religion. This is basically what Marilyn Voss Savant said who has the highest recorded IQ, and I agree with her on this. I don't care if all the mathematics and scientist agree on this, it is beyond ridiculous. Even space itself is not nothing. In fact, it's composed of particles like everything else, even if they are anti-particles, and particles that annihilate each other and form particles of energy. Solitary

Why? Why should "all this" be treated any differently than the non existence you accepted you were before you were born?

If you accept the absurdity of a God always existing or the absurdity of God creating something out of nothing. Then the universe can go back and forth from different states or even create itself. The only difference is that you skip the sky hero and chalk it up to nature.

I think you are having the same problem most people have that QM does not have a problem with a "0" state. If you can reject god, then you can accept QM as a much better explanation because unlike the god of the gaps, QM is based on real science. It is still working on the "how" but it is pointing in a much better direction even with all the freaky things it is saying.

Even those who accept science have a problem with the idea that none of this has a purpose. There does not have to be a why, it is more important to understand how it works.

Here's my schizophrenic take on it:

Everything in the universe is a fraction of 1. As soon as there was division, there was complete division, and there was expansive motion to accommodate the newly required space. As soon as there was motion there was relativity, or time. Differentiation, comes as some perfect fraction of 1, is ordered with other perfect fractions of 1, creating a mathematical tapestry of an unfathomable magnitude, which we have only begun to measure. Even the ability to have free will, is somehow an extended function of the initial fragmentation of the Unity. But unity is nothing more than the starting point on the ray. Unity is the beginning of motion.

I follow the matter principle, in that matter cannot be destroyed, it is simply reconstituted from one thing into another, down to an atomic level, or even less then that. This is why I believe matter didn't just come into existence with the big bang, but has always just been. That's not to say big bangs didn't form the universe, of course it did, knowing what extreme gravity does to atoms and neurons, it's all part of the building blocks of the universe forming.

Quote from: Brian37 on March 22, 2015, 02:34:28 PM
Why? Why should "all this" be treated any differently than the non existence you accepted you were before you were born?

If you accept the absurdity of a God always existing or the absurdity of God creating something out of nothing. Then the universe can go back and forth from different states or even create itself. The only difference is that you skip the sky hero and chalk it up to nature.

I think you are having the same problem most people have that QM does not have a problem with a "0" state. If you can reject god, then you can accept QM as a much better explanation because unlike the god of the gaps, QM is based on real science. It is still working on the "how" but it is pointing in a much better direction even with all the freaky things it is saying.

Because there wasn't a nothing before I was born, there was energy and particles, and quantum mechanics shows this is true. Even the void of space is composed of particles, as well as every field in spacetime. Quantum mechanics is not about a zero state but two apposing forces like gravity and energy that results in the universe having zero energy like a radio wave canceling out another radio wave, but they both still exist, it is about particles and anti particles constantly annihilating each other into pure energy which is still a particle of energy that creates new particles. The idea that particle physics showing there is nothing, or like a spirit is ludicrous, it actually shows the universe is composed of particles contrary to New Age Gurus like Deepak Chopra.  Solitary

I have not looked into this idea in awhile.  But whatever happened to the idea that black holes spawn universes?  If that is so, then we are simply part of a never ending chain--our universe gives birth to millions of other universes--and so on.  And then, the big bang would be when the energy ball (or whatever you want to call it) broke away from a black hole in another universe.  Of course that does not answer the question of what started it all--and what existed before that.  Maybe there wasn't ever a beginning and this system always was. 

Quote from: Mike Cl on March 23, 2015, 12:58:08 AM
I have not looked into this idea in awhile.  But whatever happened to the idea that black holes spawn universes?  If that is so, then we are simply part of a never ending chain--our universe gives birth to millions of other universes--and so on.  And then, the big bang would be when the energy ball (or whatever you want to call it) broke away from a black hole in another universe.  Of course that does not answer the question of what started it all--and what existed before that.  Maybe there wasn't ever a beginning and this system always was. 

I remember reading that a while back, but I remember it being offered as a suggestion in the vein of "It might be that...", not as a theory.  And the mysterious nature of black holes makes them something the media is going write about in a way that enhances the drama.  But we have a lot to discover, and surprises will no doubt be a part of that.

Oh goody, a fraidy cat who doesn't like being told their invisible friend isn't required. They are in good company, Allah and Yahweh and Thor are fictional too.

I'm partial to the theory that the universe is zero-sum: that the positive energy represented by matter is balanced by the negative energy represented by gravity -- although I'm not sure that's still a viable theory in light of the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.  I don't think the zero-sum universe has been ruled out yet, anyway.  But under those circumstances, there is no question of where everything in the universe came from -- it 'pays for' itself, as it were.

There is also a theory that what looks like a Big Bang in our 3+1 large-dimensional space is the result of the collision of two other spaces in a higher dimensional space in which our universe is embedded.

Me, I'm perfectly happy to follow the research and wait for the answer to develop.  This is an open question to which there is no consensus answer, so the currently most-correct answer is "We don't know yet".

Quote from: Brian37 on March 23, 2015, 06:56:52 AM
Oh goody, a fraidy cat who doesn't like being told their invisible friend isn't required. They are in good company, Allah and Yahweh and Thor are fictional too.

To be fair, Thors hot, and a pretty cool marvel hero, and doesn't have mass murder of innocent people on his record.