What are your beliefs on religion, god? (1 Viewer)

[magnifier661]

Finite.

You went through the exercise a long time ago to figure out the FINITE number of hydrogen atoms in the universe.

So how can a "finite" object always exist then Denny?

 

[Eastoff]

Absolutely! I don't understand where you are going with this. Does this have anything to do with disproving my faith or something?

No, not at all. I was just curious about belief in science.

 

[magnifier661]

Here is another explanation about the big bang. Maybe you aren't the one getting it Denny.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/astronomy-terms/big-bang-theory.htm

Although the big bang theory is famous, it's also widely misunderstood. A common misperception about the theory is that it describes the origin of the universe. That's not quite right. The big bang is an attempt to explain how the universe developed from a very tiny, dense state into what it is today. It doesn't attempt to explain what initiated the creation of the universe, or what came before the big bang or even what lies outside the universe.

And this is a really good part of the link

Summing up the big bang theory is a challenge. It involves concepts that contradict the way we perceive the world. The earliest stages of the big bang focus on a moment in which all the separate forces of the universe were part of a unified force. The laws of science begin to break down the further back you look. Eventually, you can't make any scientific theories about what is happening, because science itself doesn't apply.

Yeah maybe that was when an eternal intelligence created the laws.

 

[magnifier661]

No, not at all. I was just curious about belief in science.

I am a closet nerd. Seriously.... I love reading about everything science; even if it contridicts my faith. I definitely don't know everything, but I am open to learn about everything.

 

[crowTrobot]

Actually the counting concept will never have a greater end value like Denny mentioned. Doesn't matter if counting by ones or twos; there is no end; which means there is no greater value.

yes, when comparing infinite sets, to say one is greater (if you want to use that term) cannot mean one set has a greater 'total' number of elements than the other. the concept of totality connotes finiteness and can't be meaningfully applied to infinite sets.

greater can only be used in the context of one set having a greater number of *corresponding* elements than another. in other words for every element in the set of even natural numbers there are 2 elements in the set of natural numbers.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

I am a closet nerd. Seriously.... I love reading about everything science; even if it contridicts my faith. I definitely don't know everything, but I am open to learn about everything.

Closet?!? You're openly nerd!

 

[Denny Crane]

It is difficult enough to imagine a time, roughly 13.7 billion years ago, when the entire universe existed as a singularity. According to the big bang theory, one of the main contenders vying to explain how the universe came to be, all the matter in the cosmos -- all of space itself -- existed in a form smaller than a subatomic particle.

What are you talking about? Does this prove you don't even read what I posted?

You are ignoring the "nothing around it" part of what I write.

All the finite matter and energy in the universe was on top of itself in a very dense form. A singularity (though crowTbot says there's doubt about the singularity these days).

That singularity was all there was at time 0. Nothing around it. There was nothing before it.

A singularity is smaller than a subatomic particle, sure.

Your link still doesn't describe a tiny dot WITH "NOTHING" AROUND IT.

 

[magnifier661]

yes, when comparing infinite sets, to say one is greater (if you want to use that term) cannot mean one set has a greater 'total' number of elements than the other. the concept of totality connotes finiteness and can't be meaningfully applied to infinite sets.

greater can only be used in the context of one set having a greater number of *corresponding* elements than another. in other words for every element in the set of even natural numbers there are 2 elements in the set of natural numbers.

Yeah that makes much better sense.

 

[magnifier661]

You are ignoring the "nothing around it" part of what I write.

All the finite matter and energy in the universe was on top of itself in a very dense form. A singularity (though crowTbot says there's doubt about the singularity these days).

That singularity was all there was at time 0. Nothing around it. There was nothing before it.

A singularity is smaller than a subatomic particle, sure.

Your link still doesn't describe a tiny dot WITH "NOTHING" AROUND IT.

Nice straddling the fence Denny.... You just can't admit you are mistaken can you? You refuted my definition that the Big Bang started with this Universe was condensed into a sub-atomic partical; saying it was much larger. Obviously you can't put your logic around this dude.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/lawrence-krauss-universe-from-nothing_n_1681113.html

Watch the video. Even "Lawerence Krauss" openly suggested there is a void; but still having "something in it"; but in the end, he does agree that there is nothing. That the Universe will eventually expand to a point to where there really isn't anything left.

 

[magnifier661]

Oh and Denny, how about this link. Saying that all the matter and space of the universe was condensed from the size of a pea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/04/secrets-universe-where-why-how-book

Now the greatest thing about the Big Bang Theory is that the condensed mass created it's own space and time. So before the Big Bang Time didn't exist. Basically everything outside this universe was without time and space. But inside this condensed mass; time, space and matter all existed.

 

[Denny Crane]

Nice straddling the fence Denny.... You just can't admit you are mistaken can you? You refuted my definition that the Big Bang started with this Universe was condensed into a sub-atomic partical; saying it was much larger. Obviously you can't put your logic around this dude.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/lawrence-krauss-universe-from-nothing_n_1681113.html

Watch the video. Even "Lawerence Krauss" openly suggested there is a void; but still having "something in it"; but in the end, he does agree that there is nothing. That the Universe will eventually expand to a point to where there really isn't anything left.

WTF

You have a reading comprehension issue?

I wrote that it was a singularity. I wrote that many posts ago, and consistently. You have a problem picturing it because you insist there is time before it and some sort of void around it.

The title of the book in your link is:

"Why there is something rather than nothing."

Ironic that you'd use this as some sort of argument that there is a nothing.

From the transcript of the video:

LK: Why is there something rather than nothing? Well, ultimately there are a variety of answers, which is why I wrote a whole book about it. But the remarkable thing is that our picture has changed completely because we changed what we mean by something and nothing. Nothing is far more subtle than you might imagine, for the Bible for example, nothing would have been a vast, eternal empty universe. That would have been, you know, a void. Well that kind of nothing we now understand--namely empty space if you get rid of all the particles and all the radiation--that kind of nothing is actually quite complicated. In the modern universe it’s a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence on a timescale so short you can’t see them. So there’s nothing there but actually lots of stuff is happening. You just can’t see it, and that kind of nothing, one of the remarkable things we’ve learned is that kind of nothing is unstable. Empty space is unstable.

(Your link, the video, the book, the scientist all agree with me, not you)

 

[Denny Crane]

Oh and Denny, how about this link. Saying that all the matter and space of the universe was condensed from the size of a pea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/nov/04/secrets-universe-where-why-how-book

Now the greatest thing about the Big Bang Theory is that the condensed mass created it's own space and time. So before the Big Bang Time didn't exist. Basically everything outside this universe was without time and space. But inside this condensed mass; time, space and matter all existed.

There was no such thing as 1 planck time before the big bang. Time didn't exist. Therefore the matter, energy, etc., did not exist until the exact time of the big bang. That's why everything didn't exist for some infinite time. Nothing is older than 13.7 billion years, period.

And your link does a nice job of explaining why there was no "void" around the singularity:

There is a similar analogy to the Big Bang early universe, except that there is no "empty box" when the universe starts to expand; instead, the mass-energy of the universe creates the space-time to expand into, as it evolves.

 

[magnifier661]

WTF

You have a reading comprehension issue?

I wrote that it was a singularity. I wrote that many posts ago, and consistently. You have a problem picturing it because you insist there is time before it and some sort of void around it.

The title of the book in your link is:

"Why there is something rather than nothing."

Ironic that you'd use this as some sort of argument that there is a nothing.

From the transcript of the video:

LK: Why is there something rather than nothing? Well, ultimately there are a variety of answers, which is why I wrote a whole book about it. But the remarkable thing is that our picture has changed completely because we changed what we mean by something and nothing. Nothing is far more subtle than you might imagine, for the Bible for example, nothing would have been a vast, eternal empty universe. That would have been, you know, a void. Well that kind of nothing we now understand--namely empty space if you get rid of all the particles and all the radiation--that kind of nothing is actually quite complicated. In the modern universe it’s a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence on a timescale so short you can’t see them. So there’s nothing there but actually lots of stuff is happening. You just can’t see it, and that kind of nothing, one of the remarkable things we’ve learned is that kind of nothing is unstable. Empty space is unstable.

(Your link, the video, the book, the scientist all agree with me, not you)

You are missing his other point that there is a void and eventually the universe will expand so far that nothing is left. The space between particles are absolutely nothing; just like the space around the universe before the big bang had absolutely nothing "a Void".

And Denny... Did you or did you not write this?

You probably picture a tiny dot with "something" that is "nothing" around it, and somehow sitting there for some amount of time, infinite or not.

So explain how you aren't contridicting yourself?

 

[Eastoff]

there can be different sizes of infinity.

infinity is not a number - it doesn't behave like one. mathematicians generally deal with the concept using advanced set theory.

Oh man I completely forgot about that. My bad! Like the infinity between 1 and 2.

 

[Denny Crane]

I do think there is a sort of paradox about the big bang and expansion of the universe. At least it's a question I have and I don't have an answer for it.

If the point in space we exist in and the point in space where some very old star exists were very close together after the big bang (and have grown very far apart in the 13.7B years since), how is it possible to see the light from that old star? It seems to me that when we were close together, the light emitted from the star would have reached us and passed by us long ago because we were close together.

So what should we actually see?

 

[magnifier661]

There was no such thing as 1 planck time before the big bang. Time didn't exist. Therefore the matter, energy, etc., did not exist until the exact time of the big bang. That's why everything didn't exist for some infinite time. Nothing is older than 13.7 billion years, period.

And your link does a nice job of explaining why there was no "void" around the singularity:

There is a similar analogy to the Big Bang early universe, except that there is no "empty box" when the universe starts to expand; instead, the mass-energy of the universe creates the space-time to expand into, as it evolves.

Yep our universe is creating the space inside itself; but the space outside the universe is not bound by the rules governing this Universe. You obviously are swinging for the fences and got struck out.

 

[Denny Crane]

You are missing his other point that there is a void and eventually the universe will expand so far that nothing is left. The space between particles are absolutely nothing; just like the space around the universe before the big bang had absolutely nothing "a Void".

And Denny... Did you or did you not write this?



So explain how you aren't contridicting yourself?

Dude, the guy disses the concept of there being a biblical void. Read his words and parse them.

"Well that kind of nothing we now understand--namely empty space if you get rid of all the particles and all the radiation--that kind of nothing is actually quite complicated."

("that kind of nothing" being the biblical kind, which doesn't exist).

I don't contradict myself in what you quote.

 

[Denny Crane]

Yep our universe is creating the space inside itself; but the space outside the universe is not bound by the rules governing this Universe. You obviously are swinging for the fences and got struck out.

There is no space outside the universe. That's your logic fault.

 

[magnifier661]

I do think there is a sort of paradox about the big bang and expansion of the universe. At least it's a question I have and I don't have an answer for it.

If the point in space we exist in and the point in space where some very old star exists were very close together after the big bang (and have grown very far apart in the 13.7B years since), how is it possible to see the light from that old star? It seems to me that when we were close together, the light emitted from the star would have reached us and passed by us long ago because we were close together.

So what should we actually see?

That is a good question. It brings up the question Trip Tango asked me earlier in this thread. He said what time is it right now? Time is only a perception. The time on this exact location is different than the time on the moon, which is different than the time 13.7 billion light years away.

I believe we are seeing that star from our time to the distance of it was x amount of years from the distance it is to us.

 

[magnifier661]

Dude, the guy disses the concept of there being a biblical void. Read his words and parse them.

"Well that kind of nothing we now understand--namely empty space if you get rid of all the particles and all the radiation--that kind of nothing is actually quite complicated."

("that kind of nothing" being the biblical kind, which doesn't exist).

I don't contradict myself in what you quote.

He doesn't rule it out dude. He is actually saying it is too complicated to describe. You are contridicting yourself.

 

[magnifier661]

There is no space outside the universe. That's your logic fault.

Link? I would like to see the empircal evidence that supports this.

 

[Denny Crane]

That is a good question. It brings up the question Trip Tango asked me earlier in this thread. He said what time is it right now? Time is only a perception. The time on this exact location is different than the time on the moon, which is different than the time 13.7 billion light years away.

I believe we are seeing that star from our time to the distance of it was x amount of years from the distance it is to us.

I asked the question "what time is it?" in this thread.

It's a joke.

The speed of light is in theory a constant. So if the universe expanded faster than the speed of light (which is possible), then the light would never reach us. If the universe expanded at the speed of light, the light would not effectively move at all.

The WMAP measurements say the expansion is significantly slower than the speed of light at this time. There may have been an inflation of the universe - a time shortly after the big bang where it expanded super fast to a certain size. Even so, at the end of that inflation, it seems to me that the light from a star near us then (13.7B years ago) would have long passed us.

 

[Denny Crane]

He doesn't rule it out dude. He is actually saying it is too complicated to describe. You are contridicting yourself.

I quoted the whole paragraph where he explains how there really is something where YOU think there's nothing. He even titled his book "Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing"

 

[Denny Crane]

Link? I would like to see the empircal evidence that supports this.

The universe is Space, Time (Space-Time), and all the matter and energy.

How can you have any of those things outside of the universe?

You can't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

"The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of existence."

Totality of existence. Not "some portion of existence, not including whatever outside it"

 

[magnifier661]

http://creation.com/before-the-big-bang

The big bang postulates that everything we see in the universe today emerged in an instant from nothing. And that’s a problem. It’s all effect and no cause.

‘nothing’

The big bang postulates that everything we see in the universe today emerged in an instant from nothing. And that’s a problem. It’s all effect and no cause.

Dr Michio Kaku is Professor of Theoretical Physics at City University, New York. He asks: “How can it be that everything comes from nothing?” His solution: “If you think about it a while, you begin to realise it all depends on how you define ‘nothing’!”2

We are then shown a huge NASA vacuum chamber, the largest in the world—the nearest we can get to a state of nothing, but which still has dimensions (‘nothing in 3D’), and through which light can pass. Prof. Kaku tells us: “I think there are two kinds of nothing. First there is something I call absolute nothing: no equations, no space, no time, no anything that the human mind can conceive of, just nothing. Then there is the vacuum which is nothing but the absence of matter.”

The host then comments: “Prof. Kaku’s version of nothing is the perfect vacuum where on the face of it there is only energy. But in a perfect vacuum, energy sometimes transforms itself temporarily and briefly into matter. It is one of these tiny explosions that might have been going on and ended up in the big bang.”

Prof. Kaku: “So for me the universe did not come from absolute nothing—that is a state of no equations, no empty space, no time; it came from a pre-existing state—also a state of nothing. Our universe did in fact come from an infinitesimally tiny little explosion that took place giving us the big bang, and giving us the galaxies and stars we have today.”

The host: “For Prof. Kaku, the laws of physics did not arrive with the big bang. The appearance of matter did not start with the clock of time. His interpretation of nothing tells us there was, in short, a ‘before’. If he is right, there is an opportunity for a cause to have an effect, after all.”


Prof. Andrei Linde’s ‘radical explanation’—inflation

The host continues: “The idea of the big bang was a very bold idea but it had problems. … Why is the universe as big as it is now? Who made it expand? What caused the explosion? The big bang was clearly a very special explosion. Ordinary explosions are messy. This one produced a universe that wasn’t messy at all. Our universe is, more or less, the same in every direction. It was an observation that required a radical explanation.”

According to Dr Andrei Linde, who is Professor of Physics at Stanford University: “Just after matter first appeared (For Denny that suggest matter was always present), rather than a messy explosion, there was instead a massive and unprecedented growth in the size of the universe. This is called Inflation. If one assumes there was a period of exponential expansion of the universe in some energetic vacuum-like state, then you can explain why the universe is so large, why the universe is so small at a very large scale, why properties of the universe in different parts are so similar to each other. All these questions can be addressed if one uses inflation.”

The host: “Inflation was a pre-existing condition that has been there, well, for ever. For Prof. Linde, the big bang wasn’t really a starting point at all; he thinks that it was simply the end of something else. The universe appeared out of what he calls eternal inflation. Our universe is not the only one. There are others, all co-existing. He has counted them. There are ten to the power 10 to the power 10 to the power 7. His ideas of a multi-verse, as odd as they seem, are now within the scientific mainstream. For many cosmologists eternal inflation is in itself a reasonable explanation of what existed before our universe. For others it’s utter nonsense.” (Emphasis added.)

ME: The Multiverse theory is just a band-aide explanation. Still doesn't explain all the Universes before it. The first universe, etc.

Dr Param Singh, the big bounce

Dr Singh is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. In the program he tells us: “The principal mathematical objection [to the universe expanding from nothing] is that as the clock is wound back and Hubble’s zero hour is approached, all the stuff in the universe is crammed into a smaller and smaller space. Eventually that space will become infinitely small. And in mathematics, invoking infinity is the same as giving up, or cheating.” (Emphasis added.)

His solution: “Instead of emerging from nothing, our universe owes its existence to a previous one that had the misfortune to collapse in on itself. Then, thanks to some clever maths, rebounded to what we see today. So the big bang was not a bang at all. It was rather a big bounce. … Of course it might all be nothing more than a fantasy world of maths and little else, and there’s always the nagging question of what started the infinite bouncing in the first place. It was certainly not the big bang. That is impossible.” (Emphasis added.)

 

[magnifier661]

I quoted the whole paragraph where he explains how there really is something where YOU think there's nothing. He even titled his book "Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing"

"Well that kind of nothing we now understand--namely empty space if you get rid of all the particles and all the radiation--that kind of nothing is actually quite complicated."

Explain how this bold print explains "that kind of nothing" is ruled out? He is saying it's complicated and can't explain it. He is definitely not ruling it out like you have been for the last 100 posts.

 

[magnifier661]

The universe is Space, Time (Space-Time), and all the matter and energy.

How can you have any of those things outside of the universe?

You can't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

"The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of existence."

Totality of existence. Not "some portion of existence, not including whatever outside it"

And you speak like this is the finality. And being a science buff; you cannot rule out other known concepts. Even the concept of Multi-verse have some very educated and respectible leaders of science that don't agree with our universe being the only thing in existence.

And the other concepts aren't even theist views. These are well respected leaders in science.

 

[magnifier661]

Dr Neil Turok, membranes collided

Dr Neil Turok is the Executive Director of the Perimeter Institute in Canada.3 He says: “There are essentially two possibilities at the beginning. Either time did not exist before the beginning; somehow time sprang into existence. That’s a notion we have no grasp of and which may be a logical contradiction. The other possibility is that this event which initiated our universe was a violent event in a pre-existing universe.

His solution requires ten special dimensions plus time. Dr Turok: “We live on an extended object called a brane (short for membrane). … You can’t have only one; there must be at least two, separated by a gap. These two branes collide. When they collide they remain extended; it’s not all of space shrinking to a point. … They fill with a density of plasma and matter, but it’s finite. Everything is a definite number which you can calculate, and which you can then describe using definite mathematical laws. That’s the essential picture of the big bang in our model.”

The host comments: “For many cosmologists this is mathematical sleight of hand.” (Emphasis added.)

The program then conveniently summarizes these ideas and asks which is correct:

Michio Kaku: Stop thinking of nothing as nothing, but rather just the absence of stuff.

Andrei Linde: He redefined the big bang as inflationary energy of a mega burst dying out ten to the power 10 to the power 10 to the power 7.

Param Singh: No big bang at all; just the big bounce, again and again and again.

Lee Smolin: Our big bang was simply the other side of a black hole in a galaxy far, far away.

Neil Turok: Colliding branes in another dimension.

The host: “They would be easier to dismiss as the half-baked musings of the lunatic fringe were it not for the fact that some of the very people who constructed the everything-from-nothing big bang model are themselves starting to dismantle it.”

Sir Roger Penrose

Sir Roger Penrose is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. For many years he spent much of his time dismissing the idea of ‘before the big bang’. He now says: “The current picture of the universe is that it starts with a big bang and it ends with an exponentially expanding universe, where it eventually cools off with not much left except protons. … This very expanded universe is the equivalent to a big bang of another one. … This universe is one eon of a succession of eons. Each expanding universe accounts for the big bang of the next.”

The host adds: “Because of this a nearly infinitely large universe could just as well be the infinitely small starting point for the next one. A simplistic system with a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. Quite a bold thrust for a man who was until five years ago a pre-big-bang denier.”

We are then told that “in science ideas are just ideas until they are confirmed or denied by observations” and the program discusses how researchers are investigating gravity waves in an effort to observe the big bang itself.

The program concludes with Prof. Kaku telling us: “My parents were Buddhists. In Buddhism there is no beginning, no end, there is just nirvana.4 As a child I also went to Sunday school, where we learned that there was an instant where God said, ‘Let there be light.’ I kept these two mutually contrasting paradigms in my head, but now we can know these two paradigms together in a pleasing whole. Yes, there was a genesis. Yes, there was a big bang. And it happens all the time.”

 

[Denny Crane]

Except for the creation.com distortion of what the scientist actually said, what you posted and quoted all agree with me.

Even where you wrote this:

“Just after matter first appeared (For Denny that suggest matter was always present)"

You seem to not comprehend the words. Just after matter first appeared implies that it didn't exist until it first appeared.

 

[magnifier661]

I believe in Christianity. I also believe Jesus Christ is God in flesh. I still understand that the genisis explained through this PBS special contridicts the Bible; but my faith in Christ is stronger than it has ever been. Science is directing me towards a designer. I have felt the presence of this designer. The people in this forum that believes science is only falsifying a designer are ignoring other scientific theories that contradict your views.

In the end, there is faith on both ends of the spectrum. Without this faith; we wouldn't have been able to travel into space, drive cars, or communicate with each other with people on the other side of this planet.