In the beginning God or nothing?

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'm fine with you saying it isn't eternal, which means it started at
some point for some reason. If you have a starting point, you have
a point before the start, you may not want to acknowledge it, but if
there was a starting point there was a point where it wasn't started,
it isn't that hard to wrap your brain around. The starting point was
caused ...[text shortened]... y...what something other than the singuarlity itself, or some
other force or factor?
Kelly[/b]

If you have a starting point, you have a point before the start, you may not want to acknowledge it, but if there was a starting point there was a point where it wasn't started, it isn't that hard to wrap your brain around.

You are confused. To say that, if there was a beginning to everything, there must have been something before that (if that is what you are saying)—is just nonsense.

“But if there was a starting point there was a point where is wasn’t started” is just nonsense when we’re talking about everything—the totality. If there is already something—e.g., a piece of paper in front of you with a point marked on it, and a pencil laying nearby, then of course you can take that pencil and dot-dot-dot wherever you want on the paper.

However—

I do not think that t=0 is the “point” at which all being came to be—and I think that is the whole point about the singularity: not that there was nothing (i.e., no beingness) “before” the singularity, but that we cannot know how whatever there was might have been. Everything as we know and as we can know it is collapsed in that singularity. The totality is everything (by definition), and that totality was collapsed into that single point—including all time and all space, all dimensionality and whatever force(s) may have caused that point to expand; otherwise, it would not be the totality.

If there was a “no-time” at which there was “no-beingness”, then there wasn’t any “god-being” either. T=0 is not the beginning of “beingness”, it is the beginning of beingness as we can know it. That’s all. To even talk about a “beginning of beingness” is nonsense.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]If you have a starting point, you have a point before the start, you may not want to acknowledge it, but if there was a starting point there was a point where it wasn't started, it isn't that hard to wrap your brain around.

You are confused. To say that, if there was a beginning to everything, there must have been something before that (i ...[text shortened]... s we can know it[/i]. That’s all. To even talk about a “beginning of beingness” is nonsense.[/b]

I don't say everything; I stick to the singularity which is quite different
than everything when it comes to my views on the matter. I have had
people tell me that space was here with the singularity, I've asked
what else was here...don't get to many answers there, but that is the
question, because if we have other X not part of the singularity than
so much more is beyond our abilities to look at it, isn't even funny
when it comes to the beginning.

I am also saying that you have to have a cause for an event, you
have to have a reason for the process to begin, you have a point
where it starts, you have points after, than it follows you have a
before. As I have pointed out in this discussion several times if this
universe were caused by something bleeding into here, than time for
this universe would have began when the bleeding began; however,
time itself would have already been going on from the perspective of
where all matter that bled into our space came from.

If there was nothing before the singularity we have I believe agreed
than there would have been no cause for the singularity to occur, so a
"no time before" describes nothing quite well, and it sits beyond
reason that can be called a cause for anything.

Whatever the reason, "the reason" for the singularity occurred that
reason would have been there before the process started to make the
singularity, meaning time was going on before, while the universe
hadn't started yet.
Kelly

Originally posted by twhitehead
It fits the criteria exactly. You claimed not to have seen anything getting larger that doesn't move into areas that it hasn't been before. The surface of a balloon gets larger without moving into areas of surface that it hasn't been in before.
Maybe you would understand it better this way: a drawing on a balloon will get larger as the balloon is blown u ...[text shortened]... niverse - and you are disputing that.

So, do you believe that space is infinite in extent?

The surface of the balloon stretches, it thins out, and if and when you
take that beyond the points where the material can handle it, it breaks
and it still moves into areas of space around it didn't occupy before
too. You throw a one ton brick on that balloon so there isn't any space
to grow into it will not expand by you blowing into it, because there is
no space to blow up into.
Kelly

Originally posted by black beetle
If we cannot know it, it is undefined. Since we attempt to define whatever, we have to know what we know and what we ignore according to philosophic and scientific means. And when we provide theories, these theories must be backed up with scientific facts and evidence.

I understand that the process of our philosophic and scientific abilities it has t ...[text shortened]... ated to the physical laws which are the most likely to propagate the available information;
😵

"If we cannot know it, it is undefined. Since we attempt to define whatever, we have to know what we know and what we ignore according to philosophic and scientific means. "

Really, why is that!

Who told you we cannot know it, what if we can, but the answers cannot
be found in us alone, but have to be given to us?
Kelly

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…I'm fine with you saying it isn't eternal, which means it started at
some point for some REASON.
….(my emphasis)

Why do you assume there must be a “REASON” for there to be a t=0 ?
Why can’t there being a t=0 be just a brute fact?

…If you have a starting point, you have
a point before the start
...

-unless, logically, i there is a beginning of time, then the beginning of time, logically, must simply be uncaused.[/b]

"Why do you assume there must be a “REASON” for there to be a t=0 ?
Why can’t there being a t=0 be just a brute fact? "

I think "t=0" is made up and not real, you want to call it a fact, prove
it, it should not be to hard if it is a fact.
Kelly

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]…I'm fine with you saying it isn't eternal, which means it started at
some point for some REASON.
….(my emphasis)

Why do you assume there must be a “REASON” for there to be a t=0 ?
Why can’t there being a t=0 be just a brute fact?

…If you have a starting point, you have
a point before the start
...

-unless, logically, i ...[text shortened]... there is a beginning of time, then the beginning of time, logically, must simply be uncaused.[/b]

"For something to be “caused” there has to be a “before”.
Given the fact that a “before time began” is obviously a self-contradiction, how can the beginning of time be “caused”? -that would be a self-contradiction! "

You are the one that believes in the "t=0" I do not, as soon as
anything is acknowledge as eternal, than time's beginning is
meaningless, because at all time the eternal was, is, and will be.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I don't say everything; I stick to the singularity which is quite different
than everything when it comes to my views on the matter. I have had
people tell me that space was here with the singularity, I've asked
what else was here...don't get to many answers there, but that is the
question, because if we have other X not part of the singularity than
so ...[text shortened]... arity, meaning time was going on before, while the universe
hadn't started yet.
Kelly

Your balloon example after this post is a good illustration: you have the balloon expanding into surrounding space. But, if the balloon is taken as an analogy for the totality, then there is nothing—no dimensionality, such as time and space—for the totality to expand into. We say the universe is expanding because of observations from within the universe that indicate that galaxies, etc. are getting farther apart—in terms of space within the universe.

And so, thinking in terms of analogies like the balloon, one is prompted ask: “What is the universe expanding into?” The answer (if the universe is the totality) is—nothing! Not even empty space! And the problem is with—the analogy! We have (and can have) no proper analogy for the totality, since—by definition—there is nothing other than the totality to compare it with.

Now, Andrew Hamilton and twhitehead and I have this same problem when we try to talk about the singularity as a condition of the totality before it had expanded sufficiently for the normal laws of cause and effect, and the dimensions of space/time, to be observable. Whatever cause of a big bang, an expansion, a bounce back—whatever words we use to describe the goings on of the totality—that cause comes from ”within” the totality itself.

I think there may be some further confusion here (and I am not a scientist) with regard to the word “beginning”. In one sense, the universe-as-we-can know-it had a beginning in the singularity. But that does not mean that there was some point at which there was nothing—no being-ness at all. What it means is that there is a condition of the universe beyond which we cannot get: and we call that condition of the universe the singularity. And because we cannot get beyond that “point” (in terms of laws of causality, or dimensionality, etc.) we call that “the beginning”. At least that’s how I understand it. And that means that whatever “caused” the expansion of the singularity is unknowable, at least at this time.

Your error, I think, is to try to take analogies from within the totality and apply them to the totality itself. I think that is a fundamental, categorical philosophical error. I used to think that we could do that as long as we were careful, and acknowledged the limitations of such analogies (I’ve used them myself). Now, I think that it just leads to confusion.

Originally posted by daniel58
God's existence doesn't need time Ge can exist outside the realm of time, what did He need time for? He won't ever die, or eat, or go to bed.

And I concede that that may be possible. However that does not give him existence 'before the beginning of time' which remains an illogical claim. If however your statement was merely meant to convey the concept that God is independent of time then I will allow it, but try to remember that we are discussing scientific questions here and must try to be technically accurate in the way we describe things (for the sake of communication).

Originally posted by KellyJay
"If we cannot know it, it is undefined. Since we attempt to define whatever, we have to know what we know and what we ignore according to philosophic and scientific means. "

Really, why is that!

Who told you we cannot know it, what if we can, but the answers cannot
be found in us alone, but have to be given to us?
Kelly

Do you mean that we in fact know what we do not know, and that we cannot find on our own the answers to our questions (answers that they will be "given" to us by means of an "apocalypse", or answers that they are already revealed to some selected people by means that they are neither scientific nor philosophic products) that they will help us to define our somehow forgotten "knowledge"?

If this is what you mean, leaving aside the fact that all your questions are properly answered in detail here at this thread, at first I say that in my opinion our knowledge is not associated with a so called "absolute truth" and it is not sculptured on a holy stone. Thanks to our philosophic and scientific backround we are able to determine what exactly is an element of reality and what it is not ( "element of reality" is any excheangable and finite packet of physical information, therefore whatever cannot be a subject of a physical theory is not an element of reality by definition).

Since your speculation lacks of "elements of reality", it cannot be backed up by any scientific finds and evidence and therefore it cannot be labelled as "scientific theory". As it lacks of proper scientific back up it is not acceptable by any philosophic system too, so I fel free to dismiss it as ill-considered.
😵

Originally posted by vistesd
Your balloon example after this post is a good illustration: you have the balloon expanding into surrounding space. But, if the balloon is taken as an analogy for the [b]totality, then there is nothing—no dimensionality, such as time and space—for the totality to expand into. We say the universe is expanding because of observations from with ...[text shortened]... ions of such analogies (I’ve used them myself). Now, I think that it just leads to confusion.

[/b]I don't think it is error at all, but the way it is! Totality isn't something
I believe you can have with the singularity for the reasons I have
already given, and the reason that people are twisting in the wind here
when it comes to answers, is that they cannot find the ones
they want! Instead what is looking at them in the face is this blank with
nothing to put in it.
Kelly

Originally posted by daniel58
God's existence doesn't need time Ge can exist outside the realm of time, what did He need time for? He won't ever die, or eat, or go to bed.

I also have a number of difficulties with the concept of a being being independent of time. As far as I am concerned his interaction with time is necessarily dependent on time, and if he uses his independence in any way he risks creating a time paradox.
I must also point out that your argument that his lack of need for time to die, eat or sleep shows his independence is no good. I could quite easily say the same about a stone which is quite obviously not independent of time.

Originally posted by black beetle
Do you mean that we in fact know what we do not know, and that we cannot find on our own the answers to our questions (answers that they will be "given" to us by means of an "apocalypse", or answers that they are already revealed to some selected people by means that they are neither scientific nor philosophic products) that they will help us to define by any philosophic system too, so I fel free to dismiss it as ill-considered.
😵

I agree science is blind to a great many things, if you cannot touch
it, measure it, test it, force it to behave the way we can predict it, watch
it behave in predictable manners there may not be a whole lot that
can be done within science. That does mean that not all of reality can
be understood through science, it has its limitations and this
discussion is about one of them. I have gone down this path of
discussion before too with this, you must have eyes to see to
experience the color red, with our man made tools other than eyes all
you get are numbers or sounds not the experience of the color red.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I am also saying that you have to have a cause for an event, you
have to have a reason for the process to begin, you have a point
where it starts, you have points after, than it follows you have a
before.

But that remains an unfounded claim. Until you can back it up, it cannot really be used to make conclusions.

If there was nothing before the singularity we have I believe agreed
than there would have been no cause for the singularity to occur, so a
"no time before" describes nothing quite well, and it sits beyond
reason that can be called a cause for anything.
That sounds very much like you fully understand the scenario under discussion, so what problem remains?

Originally posted by twhitehead
But that remains an unfounded claim. Until you can back it up, it cannot really be used to make conclusions.

[b]If there was nothing before the singularity we have I believe agreed
than there would have been no cause for the singularity to occur, so a
"no time before" describes nothing quite well, and it sits beyond
reason that can be called a cause ...[text shortened]... ds very much like you fully understand the scenario under discussion, so what problem remains?

[/b]Not a problem, just show something that occured that did so without
a cause and I'll yield the point.
Kelly

Originally posted by daniel58
If a tree falls in the forest and know one knows about it did it really fall? Do you Believe in evolution?

Daniel pal well I noticed your sparks
Sex is more fun in bed than in parks
You feel more at ease;
Your butt doesn't freeze
And passers-by don' t make remarks
😵