The Universe Is Supernatural

[Analogue Boy]

As I understand it the term as it has always been understtood, implies God or some sort of Being that is responsible for all that we know in that area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural
The supernatural (Medieval Latin: supernātūrālis: supra "above" + naturalis "natural", first used: 1520–1530 AD)[1][2] is defined as being incapable to be explained byscience or the laws of nature, characteristic or relating to ghosts, gods or other supernatural beings or to appear beyond nature.[3]

If you have another definition that is commonly used I'm all ears.

There's a big difference to something being unknown and unanswered by science and attributing it to The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's just a thing that remains unknown to us at this time. The title 'Unexplained' is closer.

So who created God anyway? Or did He just pop into existence out of nowhere?

 

[Frideswide]

is defined as being incapable to be explained byscience or the laws of nature, characteristic or relating to ghosts, gods or other supernatural beings or to appear beyond nature.

I think I'm understanding that list as options rather than a set of things that must all be fulfilled.

hmmmmmmmmn

 

[dr wu]

There's a big difference to something being unknown and unanswered by science and attributing it to The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's just a thing that remains unknown to us at this time. The title 'Unexplained' is closer.

So who created God anyway? Or did He just pop into existence out of nowhere?

I agree and you probably misunderstood my last few posts. I'm not postulating a supernatural creation of the universe but merely clarifying terms that were used by the OP when he stated his 'proof of supernatural origin of the universe'.
My point to Frideswide was that if one postulates a supernatural creation them the implication is that someone supernaturally did it....like God for instance. If you read my last few posts you'll see I asked the same question that you did.

 

[dr wu]

I think I'm understanding that list as options rather than a set of things that must all be fulfilled.

hmmmmmmmmn

Options are fine but if one postulates a supernatural creation of Reality (which the OP did) then.....where do we look for that creation.,..? God by default , unless you can come up with another idea like demons or other supernatural beings. In my paradigms and discussions of theology, metaphysics, and the paranormal, with everyone I have ever talked about this with etc, the term supernatural has always implied something behind it like God or some other being above mankind and the natural universe we live in. Perhaps your definition is different in England or the way you were taught.

 

[Frideswide]

where are you dr wu? in general non revealing terms I mean!

I think you may have found the fault line - a scottish and english liberal arts and humanities education and mileu doesn't predispose me towards the existence of a deity!

I'm def a theist in private life but that shouldn't influence my conclusions on questions like this. Or my abilityto imagine different systems and worlds where either or both scenarios are "true".

Interesting stuff.

 

[dr wu]

where are you dr wu? in general non revealing terms I mean!

I think you may have found the fault line - a scottish and english liberal arts and humanities education and mileu doesn't predispose me towards the existence of a deity!

I'm def a theist in private life but that shouldn't influence my conclusions on questions like this. Or my abilityto imagine different systems and worlds where either or both scenarios are "true".

Interesting stuff.

I live in the US in Indiana.....went to Indiana University.
I'm agnostic though I was raised as a Presbyterian.

Regarding the original topic in this thread, I am surprised that the OP has not brought up God as an answer for his supernatural premise. I thought from the very beginning post he was probably a Christian apologist looking to try to score points against atheists. Apparently not since it was not proposed.

 

[gellatly68]

I'm more interested in finding out whether his tusk is, indeed, made of fudge.

 

[INT21]

There is a possibility it is a colloquial description.

But I certainly don't want to go there.

INT21

 

[INT21]

If the universe is supernatural in the sense of being created by a god (any god of your choice) then it's game over.

There is no way of proving or disproving this.

A bit like the existence of Heaven.

INT21

 

[sunsplash]

It'll all come out in the end, I think. This whole cosmo-genus thing, it's a bit like being second slip, knowing full well the batsman is on their toes with a flat bat...

 

[dr wu]

If the universe is supernatural in the sense of being created by a god (any god of your choice) then it's game over.

There is no way of proving or disproving this.

A bit like the existence of Heaven.

INT21

Which I think I mentioned pages ago; it's not an original idea (been around for centuries) nor is it provable because if it was it would have been in all the books and newspapers a long time ago.

 

[Roland Deschain]

I live in the US in Indiana.....went to Indiana University.
I'm agnostic though I was raised as a Presbyterian.

Regarding the original topic in this thread, I am surprised that the OP has not brought up God as an answer for his supernatural premise. I thought from the very beginning post he was probably a Christian apologist looking to try to score points against atheists. Apparently not since it was not proposed.

I think the OP did, implied in every bullheaded response. They blindly ignored any counter arguments and left only a single one on the table. I'm guessing few on a Fortean website are swayed by such rhetoric.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

"if there was an infinite number of stars in the universe, how could it get dark at night "

A rather silly question, given that an infinite number of stars would occupy an infinite amount of space, so there would be no room for any life to exist to observe them.

Bit like the corny old infinite number of monkeys theorem. An infinite number of monkeys would have to be jammed together Tetris-like and would leave no room for any typewriters.

 

[rynner2]

"if there was an infinite number of stars in the universe, how could it get dark at night "

A rather silly question, given that an infinite number of stars would occupy an infinite amount of space, so there would be no room for any life to exist to observe them.

The question is more subtle than it seems, and leads to the realisation that we live in an expanding universe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers'_paradox

The response that it's a "silly question" is itself rather silly - it needs an understanding of different sizes of infinities to realise that the space between the stars can also be infinite, so that the volume of space is greater than the total volume of 'star-stuff', leaving plenty of space between the stars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity#Cosmology

 

[INT21]

“Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.

The Buddha is talking to some people who live near his home country. These people, the Kalamas, are confused by the multiplicity of teachings that they hear. Many teachers arrive, who extoll their own teachings and disparage the teachings of others. And the Kalamas want to know, “Which of these venerable brahmans and contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?”

INT21

 

[INT21]

Re: Olber

This principle can easily be demonstrated at home. As, I believe, it was by one of the Greek mathematicians.

Take a small circle.
From the edge draw a line to the centre.
next to that line, draw another line from the edge to the centre.
Leave no gap at the edge.
continue doing this until the circle is filled.

Note, no gaps.

Now, draw another larger circle with the same centre.
Extend the first set of lines out from the first circle to the new one.

There are now gaps between the lines at the edge of the outer circle.

You can carry on filing the gaps with lines back to the centre and adding more lines and more circles forever.

It is a simple, if rather tedious, demonstration of the principle of infinity.

INT21

 

[rynner2]

Re: Olber

This principle can easily be demonstrated at home. As, I believe, it was by one of the Greek mathematicians.

Take a small circle.
From the edge draw a line to the centre.
next to that line, draw another line from the edge to the centre.
Leave no gap at the edge.
[How? This implies that the line has finite thickness, but the traditional definition of a line is that it has no thickness.]
continue doing this until the circle is filled.
Note, no gaps.

Now, draw another larger circle with the same centre.
Extend the first set of lines out from the first circle to the new one.

There are now gaps between the lines at the edge of the outer circle.

You can carry on filling the gaps with lines back to the centre and adding more lines and more circles forever.

It is a simple, if rather tedious, demonstration of the principle of infinity.

INT21

As you say, a rather tedious demonstration! Perhaps derived before the works of Euclid:

Euclid gathered up all of the knowledge developed in Greek mathematics at that time and created his great work, a book called 'The Elements' (c300 BCE). This treatise is unequaled in the history of science and could safely lay claim to being the most influential non-religious book of all time.

https://explorable.com/euclid

 

[INT21]

Yes, sounds like Euclid.

My party trick involves an orange, a black marker pen, Euclid, and the number 270.

INT21

 

[Analis]

Re: Olber

This principle can easily be demonstrated at home. As, I believe, it was by one of the Greek mathematicians.

Take a small circle.
From the edge draw a line to the centre.
next to that line, draw another line from the edge to the centre.
Leave no gap at the edge.
continue doing this until the circle is filled.

Note, no gaps.

Now, draw another larger circle with the same centre.

Extend the first set of lines out from the first circle to the new one.

There are now gaps between the lines at the edge of the outer circle.

You can carry on filing the gaps with lines back to the centre and adding more lines and more circles forever.

It is a simple, if rather tedious, demonstration of the principle of infinity.

INT21

I suppose that what the Greek mathematician called a principle, is that you can do no consistent mathematical work on infinity. Greeks were unsettled by the infinite and its apparently paradoxical nature, and this demonstration was for them another tool, in addition to Zeno's paradox, to prove that it could not be a mathematical object.

But there is another way to see things, as detailled in the video posted by David Plankton*, and which apprehends the infinite in a perfectly consistent way. What happens if you can perform the operations described by the Greek mathematician, what would you do with the gaps between the two circles ?

Answer : if you extend this first set of lines, leaving no gaps, out from the first circle to the new one, you will have no gaps between the lines at the edge of the outer circle, it will be already fully filled.
As we can easily demonstrate : take a point on the inner circle, only one line can be drawn from this point to the center of the circle ; as anyone will admit.
Also, that the circle is filled means that every point is already included in a line.
Now, if you draw a line on the outer circle, it will necessarily cross the inner circle at one point, in fact at one of those points, as there are no other ones.
So if you repeat the same operation of filling entirely the outer circle with straight lines from the centre, as each of the lines has to cross the inner circle, and to cross one of those points necessarily already included in the first set of lines, and only one of them, each of them will be aligned in one of the straight line with one point and only one on the outer circle.
So that in fact, these 'new' lines are the same ones that were already extended from the first circle to the new one, leaving no room for other lines.
Or, if you put it in modern mathematical terminology, you have a perfect bijection drawn between the points on the inner circle and the points of the outer circle, a one-to-one relation, every point on the inner circle being tied with one and only one point on the outer circle, and vice versa. This is true whether the diameter of the outer circle is 1.001 times larger than the inner one, 2 times, 1000 times, one million times,one bliion times,a goggle times, a goggleplex times etc... So that the number, the amount, the cardinality of the points on any circle, how large or small, is always exactely the same.

The same principle that applies when you see that there are 'as many' even numbers, or odd numbers, than there are whole numbers, and that was frightening ancient Greeks. This apparently paradoxical nature can be handled mathematically, once you admit that the fact that common sense is, indeed, offended.

*

Succeeds to encompass even such esoteric notions as grand cardinals...

 

[INT21]

..Answer : if you extend this first set of lines, leaving no gaps, out from the first circle to the new one, you will have no gaps between the lines at the edge of the outer circle, it will be already fully filled.

Completely wrong.

Let us say that the lines are 1 mm wide.

And that the circumference of the inner circle is 200 mm.

It follows that there will be no gaps between the lines where they cross the circle. 200 1mm wide lines will exactly fill the circumference.

If we now draw another circle say 400 mm in circumference then extending every original line will leave a gap of 1 mm between the lines at the new circle.

This will leave an inner circle that is full and a space between the inner and outer circles that is made up of parallel 1 mm wide lines and 200 thin triangular spaces that have their origin at the inner circle and are 1 mm wide at the outer circle.

INT21.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

..Answer : if you extend this first set of lines, leaving no gaps, out from the first circle to the new one, you will have no gaps between the lines at the edge of the outer circle, it will be already fully filled.

Completely wrong.

Let us say that the lines are 1 mm wide.

And that the circumference of the inner circle is 200 mm.

It follows that there will be no gaps between the lines where they cross the circle. 200 1mm wide lines will exactly fill the circumference.

If we now draw another circle say 400 mm in circumference then extending every original line will leave a gap of 1 mm between the lines at the new circle.

This will leave an inner circle that is full and a space between the inner and outer circles that is made up of parallel 1 mm wide lines and 200 thin triangular spaces that have their origin at the inner circle and are 1 mm wide at the outer circle.

INT21.

Math fight!

 

[Analis]

..Answer : if you extend this first set of lines, leaving no gaps, out from the first circle to the new one, you will have no gaps between the lines at the edge of the outer circle, it will be already fully filled.

Completely wrong.

Let us say that the lines are 1 mm wide.

And that the circumference of the inner circle is 200 mm.

It follows that there will be no gaps between the lines where they cross the circle. 200 1mm wide lines will exactly fill the circumference.

If we now draw another circle say 400 mm in circumference then extending every original line will leave a gap of 1 mm between the lines at the new circle.

This will leave an inner circle that is full and a space between the inner and outer circles that is made up of parallel 1 mm wide lines and 200 thin triangular spaces that have their origin at the inner circle and are 1 mm wide at the outer circle.

INT21.

I doubt that the Greek mathematician you mentioned (finding his name might help us) meant lines with a non-null width. As his was probably a mathematical demonstration, they were geometrical lines, with a width equal to zero, and their intersections are points of zero width and length. So that when one speaks of filling the whole lenght of the circle circonference with the intersection of straight lines, one has to consider in fact a materially impossible task, but which can be defined mathematically. And the only consistent way to solve the problem is to come to the previous conclusion. You cannot evade this basic mathematical fact : each geometrical point on the circonference of the first circle, on a straight line with the center, is aligned with one and only one point on the circumference of the outer circle, and the reverse is equally true. Which defines a one-to-one relation between the points on both circles, or a bijection, a basic mathematical notion that ancient Greeks already knew – with the implication that no straight lines can be added, as you have already removed any space for them ; or, to see it in a different way, a straight line drawn between the center and an 'outer' point always goes through an 'inner' point.

I suppose that the Greek mathematician was bothered by the fact that the infinite appeared not to obey to the basic, common sense law that if a bijection can be drawn between two sets of objects, they include the same number of objects. Implying that a set can never be put in a one-to-one relation with a set that it includes (a sub-set), or a set that incudes it, except with itself ; or, similarly, that what appears to be a larger set can not be put in a bijection with a smaller one (or a larger one !). But this self-evident rule appeared to be violated by infinite quantities, which offended common sense in a number of ways (one could remove an infinity from an infinity, and still have an infinity – as with odd numbers in relation to whole numbers). Greeks then usually concluded that the infinite made no sense, and could not be actual. Galileo, much later, elaborated on this contradiction, and came to a different conclusion, that usual rules did not apply to infinity, which did not mean that it couldn't exist or be actual. It was only in the 19th century that Kantor, followed by a number of disciples, gave a more precise definition of what can be or not be said (which is well summarized in the previous video).

 

[INT21]

..I doubt that the Greek mathematician you mentioned (finding his name might help us) meant lines with a non-null width. As his was probably a mathematical demonstration, they were geometrical lines, with a width equal to zero, and their intersections are points of zero width and length..

So the lines you describe above, logically don't exist ?

INT21

 

[INT21]

Kantor went mad, the fate of more than one mathematician,. He proposed that there was not only one infinity, but an infinity of infinities.
His argument was simple. Take a pair of line. fill the gap between with lines. then expand the result. You will have more gaps. fill in these gaps, expand again, more gaps appear. Ad infinitum.

There is no need for imaginary zero width lines to prove my point. A you kindly pointed out, kantor did it years ago with real lines. I have no wish to follow him into madness.

INT21

 

[Vardoger]

Is it even possible to talk about infinity when you count, since you start at zero or one. If something is infinite it would not have an end or start.

 

[INT21]

..If something is infinite it would not have an end or start...

Exactly.

Which is why mathematicians hate the idea so much. When an infinity drops out of an equation there is much rending of cloth and gnashing of teeth.

Or maybe something is wrong with the maths ?

Would God even allow that ?

(assuming you allowed for a God)

INT21

 

[INT21]

Over the years there has been a lot of talk about 'curved space'. Einstein was particularly keen on it.
But recent work has indicated that space is 'flat'.
For space to be curved, if you take three stars, very far away, and construct a triangle using the stars as vertices, then the angles formed will not add up to 180 degrees. This is due to the curvature of space. Non -Euclidean maths.
anyone who doubts this can try drawing an equilateral triangle on a football then measuring the angles.

But it seems that the angles do add up to 180 degrees. plane geometry rules.

And this is taken by some to indicate that the Universe can have no end. It just goes on forever.

Sort of ..infinite.

INT21

 

[Mungoman]

I reckon we're getting too clever for our own good, and that soon we'll figure out that everything is an illusion, and we will all disappear...I reckon.

 

[skinny]

Pop goes the singularity.

 

[INT21]

...
I reckon we're getting too clever for our own good, and that soon we'll figure out that everything is an illusion, and we will all disappear...I reckon...

But even an illusion has to be created somewhere, by something.

The holographic theory would still require a projector.

INT21.