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The Universe Is Supernatural

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fudgetusk

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Feb 19, 2013
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212
I'm talking about the origins of the universe. Seems to me there are only two options...
Theory A) something came from nothing
TheoryB) Something always existed

When I say nothing I mean NOTHING. No energy, no matter, no time, no dimensions.
There are two types of nothing according to Michio Kaku. The one I just described(which he called Absolute Nothing)and the nothing that quantum scientists prefer: one that has dimension. A void but a void in which things could still manifest. This is in fact not theory A it is theory B: something always existed. But quantum scientists fail to see they are describing Theory B.

I saw a documentary recently in which theories were put forward to explain what happened before the big bang. Some of the theories were Branes, the universe springing from a previous universe, black holes etc. None of them explained where these things came from. They all were ascribing to Theory B: something always existed.

Problem is with Theory A and Theory B is that they are not logical. Something from absolute nothing is impossible and the idea that energy/matter ALWAYS existed is equally illogical.
You cannot have an infinite past. This is something you either get or don't get.
But the universe plainly exists so one of the theories has to be right. I put it to you that the universe came into being from absolute nothing but we should see this as a supernatural act.
 
Your Philosphising has more holes than a Gruyere cheese!

Define the cause of this "supernatural act". Did this cause come from nothing? Or did it always exist? :twisted:

Which just takes us back to Theory A) and Theory B)! :p
 
Or theory C, we're still learning about the physics of our universe, so any discussion of what cane before is speculative. And ultimately not as important as the universe we're in

fudgetusk said:
You cannot have an infinite past. This is something you either get or don't get.
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It's not at all something you either get or don't. Human experience creates an ingrained struggle between the feeling (and we seem to be talking about a feeling here) that nothing could be infinite, and the problem that there must be something beyond the outskirts of the universe whether in time or space, but then if there's something beyond it there can't be infinite somethings, nor can there be nothing beyond the somethings. Even nothing can't be infinite, because we can't imagine infinite, but nor can anything stop with nothing beyond it, because we can't imagine that either. The point is, we might not be able to imagine these things, but we don't have the physics to explain it. That no more makes it supernatural than quantum theory was supernatural before we had the physics to describe it. Calling the universe surpnatural because we don't understand it all is of less use than the speculations by the people who actually study these things. And calling anything supernatural is probably pointless. Even if ghosts turn out to be real, they're probably still natural, just natural we don't understand.
 
I would like to know why an infinite past is impossible and why something from nothing is impossible.
 
rynner2 said:
Your Philosphising has more holes than a Gruyere cheese!

Define the cause of this "supernatural act". Did this cause come from nothing? Or did it always exist? :twisted:

Which just takes us back to Theory A) and Theory B)! :p
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The cause for the universe is unknowable. And where are the holes in my philosophising?
 
PeteByrdie said:
Or theory C, we're still learning about the physics of our universe, so any discussion of what cane before is speculative. And ultimately not as important as the universe we're in


It's not at all something you either get or don't. Human experience creates an ingrained struggle between the feeling (and we seem to be talking about a feeling here) that nothing could be infinite, and the problem that there must be something beyond the outskirts of the universe whether in time or space, but then if there's something beyond it there can't be infinite somethings, nor can there be nothing beyond the somethings. Even nothing can't be infinite, because we can't imagine infinite, but nor can anything stop with nothing beyond it, because we can't imagine that either. The point is, we might not be able to imagine these things, but we don't have the physics to explain it. That no more makes it supernatural than quantum theory was supernatural before we had the physics to describe it. Calling the universe surpnatural because we don't understand it all is of less use than the speculations by the people who actually study these things. And calling anything supernatural is probably pointless. Even if ghosts turn out to be real, they're probably still natural, just natural we don't understand.
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There's nothing outside space and time. If you were to travel beyond the confines of space or time you would probably just vanish. And "It's not at all something you either get or don't." is surely wrong. There's no third option.
 
If the past is infinite, then an infinite amount of time would have to pass before we could arrive at the year 2016.

Since we have indeed arrived at the year 2016, we surely have only passed a finite amount of time before reaching here.

All the same, if you want to invoke logic, the paradoxes of Zeno apparently prove that a finite distance or time can always be divided into an infinite number of distances or moments. I don't think they've been convincingly refuted, despite offending common sense.

So maybe not so basic after all?
 
Yes, there are different types of infinity.
 
fudgetusk said:
There's nothing outside space and time.
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I was going to be a bit patronising and ask in which book you read this, or how you otherwise know, but I changed my mind. You don't know this!

fudgetusk said:
If you were to travel beyond the confines of space or time you would probably just vanish.
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The concensus is that the laws of physics as we know them are particular to our universe, so yes, if it is possible for one to leave the universe one probably would cease to exist in any recognisable form outside of it.

fudgetusk said:
And "It's not at all something you either get or don't." is surely wrong. There's no third option.
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I took your statement...
fudgetusk said:
You cannot have an infinite past. This is something you either get or don't get.
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...to mean that it's something people understand instinctively or don't. If I incorrectly inferred that, I apologise. My point was that it's not a 'truth', like some kind of faith, that people either understand or not, and it's just as instinctive that there must be something beyond any boundary, or something before our universe in some sense. But is that something within something else, or did it emerge from a previous something? There's no way to speculate about such things without hitting a "who created God" paradox, and we lack the technology to investigate the issue.

Nor is it as simple as whether there's an infinite past. It seems clear our universe had a beginning, the Big Bang being the widely accepted theory, though not unchallenged in science. But before that, time, if it exists as we know it, could act differently in any number of ways, and we could construe some of those ways as being infinite, or the word infinite might be too limited to describe it.

I'll concede this. Whatever lies outside our universe, and from whatever it emerged, it probably has different natural laws than our universe, so could be described as "supernatural", as much as that's a semantic argument. I prefer to think of it simply as science we've yet to discover.
 
I think there's a suspicion among physicists (any physicists here please feel free to correct me) that the fundamental processes of the universe occur outside our space-time. Many of them are loathe to discuss how this may be because it's beyond our experimental and conceptual reach.

Questions such as "What was there before the universe began?" and "What is outside the universe?" are intriguing but unanswerable.
 
PeteByrdie said:
Nor is it as simple as whether there's an infinite past. It seems clear our universe had a beginning, the Big Bang being the widely accepted theory, though not unchallenged in science. But before that, time, if it exists as we know it, could act differently in any number of ways, and we could construe some of those ways as being infinite, or the word infinite might be too limited to describe it.
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I saw a documentary about what happened before the big bang and they said that if you use infinity in an equation then you have either given up or are cheating. I take from that the fact that you cannot have infinity in any quantum model. Infinity is a philosophical concept not a number and therefore the finite cannot be infinite.
 
Frasier Buddolph said:
I think there's a suspicion among physicists (any physicists here please feel free to correct me) that the fundamental processes of the universe occur outside our space-time. Many of them are loathe to discuss how this may be because it's beyond our experimental and conceptual reach.

Questions such as "What was there before the universe began?" and "What is outside the universe?" are intriguing but unanswerable.
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Exactly. They are unknowable because our minds work on logic. And if something is not logical then it must be magical.
 
Not exactly. They are unknowable because, being of this universe, our physical and conceptual reach is limited to things of this universe. Things outside our space-time are absolutely barred to us. I don't think any concept of logic enters into it. Quantum mechanics are most certainly NOT logical, at least not in the sense that most people use the word.
 
fudgetusk said:
I saw a documentary about what happened before the big bang and they said that if you use infinity in an equation then you have either given up or are cheating. I take from that the fact that you cannot have infinity in any quantum model. Infinity is a philosophical concept not a number and therefore the finite cannot be infinite.
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Certainly, it is considered a failure to find infinities in the mathematics of this, assumed finite, universe, but we're not really discussing this universe. Your opinion about the supernatural nature of this universe is predicated on your opinion of what does (or doesn't) lie beyond it. We can't create models for those things because we have no real data from which to begin. In fact, infinity is intrinsic to quantum mechanics. Particles are considered to have infinite potential futures, albeit with calculable probabilities.
fudgetusk said:
Exactly. They are unknowable because our minds work on logic. And if something is not logical then it must be magical.
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Our minds most certainty don't work on logic. We judge many things of less arcane nature than astrophysics according to our own everyday experiences on Earth. By the reasoning that anything that doesn't seem logical to us must be magical, that's relativity theory and quantum mechanics thrown straight in with alchemy, astrology, necromancy (and all the other mancies), and any number of religious cosmologies invented by mad prophets and philosophers.

One wonders why you feel so strongly that you have to convince us the universe can be described as magical or supernatural.
 
Frasier Buddolph said:
Not exactly. They are unknowable because, being of this universe, our physical and conceptual reach is limited to things of this universe. Things outside our space-time are absolutely barred to us. I don't think any concept of logic enters into it. Quantum mechanics are most certainly NOT logical, at least not in the sense that most people use the word.
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Then they can only be described as magical
 
PeteByrdie said:
Certainly, it is considered a failure to find infinities in the mathematics of this, assumed finite, universe, but we're not really discussing this universe. Your opinion about the supernatural nature of this universe is predicated on your opinion of what does (or doesn't) lie beyond it. We can't create models for those things because we have no real data from which to begin. In fact, infinity is intrinsic to quantum mechanics. Particles are considered to have infinite potential futures, albeit with calculable probabilities.

Our minds most certainty don't work on logic. We judge many things of less arcane nature than astrophysics according to our own everyday experiences on Earth. By the reasoning that anything that doesn't seem logical to us must be magical, that's relativity theory and quantum mechanics thrown straight in with alchemy, astrology, necromancy (and all the other mancies), and any number of religious cosmologies invented by mad prophets and philosophers.

One wonders why you feel so strongly that you have to convince us the universe can be described as magical or supernatural.
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>>We can't create models for those things because we have no real data from which to begin.

No, we cannot create models for those things because they defy logic. They are magical.

>>Our minds most certainty don't work on logic.

Maybe yours doesn't but mine does. Are you suggesting that our minds are supernatural?
 
Well, this has been fun, but it seems to rest mostly on a semantic discussion about the words "supernatural" and "magical", and I'm not convinced Fudgetusk isn't just trolling for reactions. So, I'll say this; in many ways, I find the universe "magical", but perhaps not in the way Fudgetusk means, and I'm out!
 
I quite enjoyed John Dobson's cosmological paradigm when I heard him expound it on Sidewalk Astronomers, but maybe that's because he was such a humble and engaging fellow. Here it is for the learned:
Dobson claimed the Big Bang model did not hold up to scrutiny,[7][8] and instead advocated a non-standard cosmology; a “Recycling” Steady State model of the universe where matter in the universe is forever expanding outward, but matter also “recycles” over time via quantum tunneling. In an essay entitled, “Origins”, Dobson also argued that such a universe could allow for life to be ubiquitous and ever-present.[9]

Wikipedia
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Great sense of haha too: "The universe is mostly hydrogen and ignorance."
 
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Frasier Buddolph said:
Not exactly. They are unknowable because, being of this universe, our physical and conceptual reach is limited to things of this universe. Things outside our space-time are absolutely barred to us. I don't think any concept of logic enters into it. Quantum mechanics are most certainly NOT logical, at least not in the sense that most people use the word.
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I saw this quite well demonstrated long ago when the BBC still did serious science programs. They showed how, to a two dimensional being, what went on the third dimension was unknowable. Not 'mystical' or 'supernatural', but unknowable. So if the overall space-time continuum actually supports more than three dimensions, we are simply not in a position to find out how it works. We may from time to time see parts of things that have more dimensions but we will not be able to understand links that are outside the three we can experience. The demonstration used a fork suspended over the two dimensional plane - to the two dimensional being the tines were clearly separate disks so it would have been a mystery how they moved in unison as the fork was turned. A link could be inferred by us because we know the nature of the third dimension, but not by the poor old 2D'ers.

Since I had a senior mathematician demonstrate to me there must be a minimum of nine dimensions, I think I'd rather believe in God - it saves my brain being levered out the back of my head.
 
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God is just a placeholder. Anyways, why would illogical equal magical?
 
My thought has always been that the objection "If God created the universe who created God?" (substitute any other term for God..magic bunny, quantum zitblaster, whatever) is itself illogical and presumptive.

The notion that "nothing can come from nothing" is no more than an observation of the universe in which we live. It is a "law". But any proposed entity responsible for that universe's existence would be responsible for its laws, and would not be - or else why would it be? - subject to those same laws it has brought into existence.

So nothing comes from nothing is true of the reality we inhabit but there is no "natural" obligation for it to apply to somethng external to that reality. eg "God". "He" has no obligation we are aware of to come from something.
 
I can see that you've all had your minds addled by watching too many quantum physics documentaries. You no longer have a sense of logic. This is because the scientists are paid to come up with reasons why the world exists and none of those reasons can be magical or the scientists would lose their funding and the credibility of their peers. Hence the scientists have had to suggest that the illogical is logical. What a shame you are all so damaged.

Consider these quotes.

"Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real."
Niels Bohr

“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.”
― Niels Bohr
 
So if the results of experiments in quantum mechanics don't seem logical, despite the results being repeatable and consistent, we should just abandon them and declare it all witchcraft?
 
Time to pinch it off, Fudgetusk.

Nobody here can understand your advanced paradigm. o_O
 
Coal said:
Ad hominem argument. The refuge of a charlatan.
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Sure it's Ad hominem. That's where the fault lies. You cannot follow a string of logic nor can you understand the basic laws of logic. You are surely therefore damaged.
 
Xanatic* said:
So if the results of experiments in quantum mechanics don't seem logical, despite the results being repeatable and consistent, we should just abandon them and declare it all witchcraft?
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Given that no scientist can come up with a logical reason for how reality came into being...yes. Take the double slit experiment. Shows that reality doesn't exist unless we look at it. That's a sign that the world is magical. COnsider the singularity. According to physics it had no reality because there was nothing there to measure it. For it to explode it would require something else to have been there -an observer. God?
 
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