The existence of the universe!

[cal]

Hey people

I've spent a bit of time looking through the site and have to say it's the most comprehensive such site I've found so far (namely apologetics). It tries to deal with even the difficult issues in a way that's respectable.

However, there's one 'biggie' I was surprised not to be able to find - maybe I'm wrong, please let me know where to find the answer if it is there, and otherwise feel free to give me your opinions.

It's a complex question related to the creation of the universe. This page talks a bit about it here: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... intro.html, even delving into the realm of multidimensional universes and the "fine-tuning" problem. It explains how God could have created our universe from another dimension, and that God's creation of our fine-tuned universe is simpler than positing a multiverse (which is one way to scientifically explain how we could be here in the first place).

One initial comment pops into my head off the bat: he says that God creating the universe is simpler than having multiple universes. I have to disagree: if God exists, and is able to perform an incredible act of creation of a universe, HE must be pretty darn complicated Himself! And so, while the multiverse idea seems to 'push the fine-tuning problem away' by positing unknown multiple universes, the Creation idea hides all complexity within the god concept itself.

The other unanswered problem is that of the existence of God versus the existence of the UV. Let's say we believe that something cannot come from nothing. So, we say that the universe can't come from nothing, therefore a God must have created it.
You see the problem: where did God come from? He's also 'something', isn't He? So we haven't solved anything by saying 'God did it', since God also must have come from somewhere. You say He always existed? That doesn't help, since an atheist can say the same about the universe. To me, both ideas are equally unsatisfying.

This is disturbing, isn't is? Basically we live in a universe that seems 'tuned' for our kind of life, and that's ALL we know. I think it's dangerous to argue that God must have done the tuning, because He also must have come from somewhere. Saying that God is somehow 'unknowable' isn't helping us more than saying 'the universe is unknowable'.

And there's one more thing that isn't often mentioned. It's about something coming from nothing. In fact, something CAN come from nothing. It's happening all around us, everywhere in the universe, as we speak. Tiny particles are being created literally from nothing, - and immediately destroyed - all the time. The universe is like of bubbling froth of matter appearing and disappearing instantly. How is this possible? Nobody really knows, but there's a branch of physics that *describes* it: quantum physics. This is the weirdest physics we know about, and it describes the way the universe works at a tiny tiny scale. It sounds weird, and it is - but it's as real as day. If quantum theory were wrong, we wouldn't be able to do weird experiments like making atoms disappear and reappear somewhere else (like a miniature version of 'beam me up Scotty') - and they've done this in recent years, plus other mind-boggling weird things. It's a hot research area not only because it defies our intuition, but because it may be an important aspect of upcoming technolgies. They're talking about building computers based on quantum physics, and if they work, then we have to finally admit the theory does, too. It's all very weird, and very complicated! But REAL. The point is - the universe is WAY weirder than our daily experiences can comprehend, and something appearing out of nothing is actually quite normal for the universe.

So arguments that begin 'there can't be something from nothing' are sort of weak from the beginning....
Even without quantum physics the universe is really weird. I mean, who would've thought we could slow down time just by going faster? Or that light can get bent just by going past a heavy object? This is Einstein's relativity theory. He figured it out, and both are proven facts now since around 1920. Even though that's long ago, how many people on the street do you think know these things? Why not? Because they're not parts of our intuition, which is sort of like a database of patterns we build up from daily experiences. And we don't experience the world of the very very small OR the very very fast at all, so we don't know about this stuff.

All I'm trying to say by bringing in modern physics is this: the universe is REALLY weird, and even if there's something like a creator, I'm 100% certain He's nothing like we can imagine - and that includes our description of Him in our Bible. The way God is described in the Bible seems to me to be much too 'human' to be true. One COULD argue that the Bible describes God in a way that makes Him comprehensible to us. OK. Maybe a more intelligent species somewhere out there has another Bible describing God in a way that's a bit closer to the truth. But now I can use Occam's razor: what's simpler: that the Bible is a bookwritten by (or inspired directly by) an incredibly complex and powerful entity that we know next to nothing about in such a way as to be meaningful to us and our problems, or that humans wrote the bible in the first place as a way of dealing with human problems? I think if there IS a God, then He's so unbelievably complicated that we can't possibly know anything about Him. So, I prefer to concentrate on what we know (more or less), and bathe in the wonderful mystery of the things we don't.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the whole existence of the universe thing.

[Kurieuo]

This page talks a bit about it here: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... intro.html, even delving into the realm of multidimensional universes and the "fine-tuning" problem....

One initial comment pops into my head off the bat: he says that God creating the universe is simpler than having multiple universes. I have to disagree: if God exists, and is able to perform an incredible act of creation of a universe, HE must be pretty darn complicated Himself! And so, while the multiverse idea seems to 'push the fine-tuning problem away' by positing unknown multiple universes, the Creation idea hides all complexity within the god concept itself.

I'd disagree, yet people are entitled to see things how they want. I find though that when people use Ockham's razor that they tend to overlook the fact it doesn't actually recommend opting for the most simple explanation, but rather it bids us not to multiply entities beyond necessity. Therefore, if we take into account all the facts we do know—one universe which has a beginning, and the fine tunedness of our universe (which Rich also comments on), then I'm inclined to believe that a Creator seems more plausible, multiplies entites less, and for me possesses far greater explanatory ultimacy than that of unconscious matter.

The other unanswered problem is that of the existence of God versus the existence of the UV. Let's say we believe that something cannot come from nothing. So, we say that the universe can't come from nothing, therefore a God must have created it.
You see the problem: where did God come from? He's also 'something', isn't He?

This has long been answered as simple search will reveal should reveal many responses. I have directly answered this myself at http://discussions.godandscience.org/viewtopic.php?t=58.

And there's one more thing that isn't often mentioned. It's about something coming from nothing. In fact, something CAN come from nothing. It's happening all around us, everywhere in the universe, as we speak. Tiny particles are being created literally from nothing, - and immediately destroyed - all the time.

Actually this is not entirely true as far as I'm aware for the 'nothing' you speak of still actually consists of something. I quote:

The fine structure of nothing is a bubbling and fizzing of electromagnetic energy called the "quantum froth". Zillions of photons coming into existence for a very short fraction of a second and then disappearing back into nothing. These are real photons, despite their short lives meaured in mere picoseconds, and they are able to interact with the world for the short time they exist.

http://linus.it.uts.edu.au/~iwoolf/txt/ ... energy.txt

The universe is like of bubbling froth of matter appearing and disappearing instantly. How is this possible? Nobody really knows, but there's a branch of physics that *describes* it: quantum physics.

If given something in the universe actually really does 'literally' come from nothing, not even a vacuum, not even postive/negative energy cancelling each other out, not even physical laws working their 'magic', etc, etc... despite the absurdity which lies behind such a concept, I fail to see how such meant to pose a challenge to God's existence?

Kurieuo.

[August]

As C. S. Lewis once said:

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., of materialism and astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

[cal]

Therefore, if we take into account all the facts we do know—one universe which has a beginning, and the fine tunedness of our universe (which Rich also comments on), then I'm inclined to believe that a Creator seems more plausible, multiplies entites less, and for me possesses far greater explanatory ultimacy than that of unconscious matter.

Hm, I think you think of the Creator idea as simple and plausible because it plays to our own experiences much more than some sort of weird physics. To us, the existence of a Creator seems nice and simple (very beautiful and grand, for sure - but simple to grasp as a concept), whereas the muliverse and quantum stuff just doesn't speak to us so personally. The truth is, if a creator exists, He must be much more complex than the universe itself (I think you'll agree), so how can you argue that the God hypothesis is in any way more plausible than a theory about multiple universes? Somehow I have the feeling you think of God as an elegant solution to a complicated question, but it really just transforms the question "where did the universe come from?" to "what is God?" (if not "where did God come from?"). It seems to be that the latter question is even more difficult to answer than the former.

You see the problem: where did God come from? He's also 'something', isn't He?

This has long been answered as simple search will reveal should reveal many responses. I have directly answered this myself at http://discussions.godandscience.org/viewtopic.php?t=58. ]

Here you conclude that God doesn't require a cause because he doesn't have a beginning. Again, I can counter that by saying that the universe also doesn't have a beginning. The big bang created time itself, so talking about 'before' the universe makes no sense anyhow. All we can really talk about is the existence of something, and while we know the universe exists, we don't know that God exists.
On the other hand, if you say that the universe had to come *from* somewhere regardless of talk of causality, the same should hold for God...no?

I have no clue where the universe came from, whether it was caused, or has simply always existed. But I see no point in complicating the question by adding a creator to the picture.

If given something in the universe actually really does 'literally' come from nothing, not even a vacuum, not even postive/negative energy cancelling each other out, not even physical laws working their 'magic', etc, etc... despite the absurdity which lies behind such a concept, I fail to see how such meant to pose a challenge to God's existence?

I might put it this way: the fact that such weirdness as things appearing out of nothing is possible implies that maybe the very universe appeared out of nothing(!) Of course I can't know that, but the point is that I find the idea *barely* weirder than most of what we already know about quantum physics. If extremely weird things are going on at the microscopic scale of the universe, is it really such a leap to accept that really weird stuff might also be going on at the scale of the very large -at the scale of the universe or even much greater?

I come back to the idea that "a creator of extreme complexity" is a more complicated concept than "extreme complexity" alone.

[cal]

As C. S. Lewis once said:
But if their thoughts - i.e., of materialism and astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true?

C.S. Lewis wrote some amazing fairy tales (I'm reading the whole tales of Narnia with my wife at the moment), and I know he's a Christian - but I'm a bit disappointed in this argument of his.

The problem with his analogy is that is makes it look like our thoughts are somehow mere accidents. THAT we can think at all may have arisen thanks to some sort of accident or a series of accidents, but thinking itself is far from "accidental"! I think most people on this forum will agree that what they say is far from a series of random (accidental) words and letters strung together.

Scientists (or what Lewis calls materialists and astronomers) try and figure out how to explain what we observe using our senses and instruments, and make predictions based on the theories. If the theories are wrong they won't work.
If Lewis is correct, then we can't believe anything ANYONE says - and that includes him! But that's absurd...if someone says "the apple will take 2.5 seconds to reach the ground" I can test it and see if his claim was a random one or really true. That's a thought about how the physical world works, and can be tested by anybody.

Anyway, I hope that many of you here will agree that their own thoughts are not mere "accidents"(!)

Lewis may simply have meant that thinking is the *result* of a series of accidents, but that doesn't mean that thinking is somehow fundamentally flawed...hands up, those who think their thoughts aren't worth being heard??

[August]

The problem with his analogy is that is makes it look like our thoughts are somehow mere accidents. THAT we can think at all may have arisen thanks to some sort of accident or a series of accidents, but thinking itself is far from "accidental"!

Can you please define "thinking"?

I think most people on this forum will agree that what they say is far from a series of random (accidental) words and letters strung together.

Right, but most people on this forum also would agree that we can think rationally and logically because we were created by God, not as the result of a series of accidents, as you propose.

Scientists (or what Lewis calls materialists and astronomers) try and figure out how to explain what we observe using our senses and instruments, and make predictions based on the theories.

How do you know that your senses and instruments are reliable? Can you please explain logically how those observations are turned from sensation into knowledge, and how that knowledge is turned into predictions?

If the theories are wrong they won't work.

So it seems the senses and instruments may not be reliable, or we would not have wrong theories. On what basis then do you assert there is no God using the senses?

If Lewis is correct, then we can't believe anything ANYONE says - and that includes him! But that's absurd...if someone says "the apple will take 2.5 seconds to reach the ground" I can test it and see if his claim was a random one or really true. That's a thought about how the physical world works, and can be tested by anybody.

No, if Lewis is correct we need a God to believe what anyone says. The fact that your worldview precludes a God creates absurdity only for you. How do you know that you are in the physical world, and not in a dream? Do you always rely on the senses to prove everything? Didn't you yourself show above that the senses are not always reliable?

Anyway, I hope that many of you here will agree that their own thoughts are not mere "accidents"(!)

Yes, we do, thanks to the Christian God.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

It's also interesting that the multiverse theory does not get rid of fine tuning. When Gould explains it away using a clothes rack full of clothes, he ignores the fine tuned factory required to produce enough coats to get one that fits.

[cal]

Hi again

First, something about me and why I'm posting here.
I understand that this is a Christian-only board and so on. You've probably figured out that I'm not. I understand these sorts of rules to a point (the option to filter out flamers and idiots for example), and I know many boards have similar rules. Personally I find these sorts of contraints dangerous, because it makes it easy to shut down even well-meant and sometimes-intelligent dialogues, just because the rules say it's possible. I honestly don't think I'm being disruptive or insulting, am I?

My reasons for starting this thread are simple: I read some of the site and was impressed by the extensive catalog of serious answers to most of the difficult questions that come up during a typical god-versus-science debate. I wanted to see what sorts of people are on the forum, and try my hand at a debate with you guys. So what? That's perfectly healthy. My wife is Christian and we get into some difficult debates too, but we feel closer for it in the end, because we both believe strongly that people should listen to each other and be open to new ideas. Not to sound silly, but ask yourselves this when you're about to do something: would Jesus do it? Would Jesus turn away a disbeliever? Of course not. Just as I don't turn away a believer, if confronted with one (and I am, every day). I see no reason why "we" have to stick to our corner and "you" to yours. I'm against outright flaming on all sides under any circumstances, but a good debate can bring no harm. So on we go! And thanks to the modertor(s) for not kicking me off yet ; )

Can you please define "thinking"?

That's a tough one. How about: forming ideas in our minds about topics not related to our minute-to-minute personal survival. Using abstract concepts and analogies to come to rational conclusions about ourselves and about things completely unrelated to ourselves. For the record, these are things we do best out of all life on the planet - but chimps do it too, and probably much better than many people realize. So do whales. But forget Earth for a moment - if there's any other life out there, chances are they're WAY beyond us, hence MUCH better thinkers. We're just lucky enough to be the best at it on this planet.

Right, but most people on this forum also would agree that we can think rationally and logically because we were created by God, not as the result of a series of accidents, as you propose.

Isn't it conceivable that a rationally-thinking being could arise without a creator? Why not? There's plenty of things we don't understand, so how can we shut out such a possiblity outright? I'm sure not an expert on the matter, and I don't presume to know why it should or shouldn't be possible. I don't think any of us should.

How do you know that your senses and instruments are reliable? Can you please explain logically how those observations are turned from sensation into knowledge, and how that knowledge is turned into predictions?

Yikes, that would be worth a long essay! This is seriously fundamental philosophy, and I don't feel qualified to answer. I would tend to think we all here trust our senses and instruments (whatever they may be), no? For example, we can all measure the length of a stick using a ruler, and assign some sort of error to our measurement. Now, if we can do that again and again and always get the same result, we know we have consistency at least. But much better: if many other people ALSO get the same result, we start to strongly suspect that the stick is REALLY as long as we thought it was. That's what I would call "knowledge". Of *course* it's possible we're all in a dream and living a grand illusion etc. etc. but even if it is, the point is that it's a *self-consistent* dreamworld we live in, and we can only work within its boundaries. IF we're in some sort of dream world, then OK - so all we're doing by doing science is collecting self-consistent knowledge *about* that dream world that most scientists using the same observational and experimental methods can agree on.

As for our senses: while it's true we can't KNOW that what we experience is 'true', here again all we can do is hope that if everyone agrees that something is red, or that it's raining - that our senses aren't deceiving us any more than the next guy's.

But these are deep philosophical problems that have little to do with science versus religion(!)

If the theories are wrong they won't work.

So it seems the senses and instruments may not be reliable, or we would not have wrong theories. On what basis then do you assert there is no God using the senses?

I'm not sure I understand. If our instruments were not consistent - say, if a ruler gave a radically different length each time I measured the same stick - then yes, we would have no reliable theories about the world at all(!) Science is *only* possible at all because the world DOES make some sense to us. We see patterns that repeat, rules that seem to be followed everywhere in the universe the same way. We have a feeling we CAN begin to understand things, and that's only because our world isn't completely chaotic, and our senses and instruments DO work in ways we can describe and understand.

No, if Lewis is correct we need a God to believe what anyone says. The fact that your worldview precludes a God creates absurdity only for you.

But I DO believe things people tell me (when I have a reason to trust them), and my worldview is very satisfying to me. That's exactly why I said that Lewis' statement doesn't really make sense in the first place.

How do you know that you are in the physical world, and not in a dream? Do you always rely on the senses to prove everything? Didn't you yourself show above that the senses are not always reliable?

Of course I don't know my senses are always reliable, and I can't know for sure if I'm not in a dream world or not. But nobody can - belief in God or otherwise(!) I have my beliefs, you yours. That changes nothing about the fact that we all use our senses in the same way.

Anyway, I hope that many of you here will agree that their own thoughts are not mere "accidents"(!)

Yes, we do, thanks to the Christian God.

We'll have to agree to disagree here: I believe rational thought is possible without God, you don't. We can't argue much more on that point, I think, because we can't see the definitive "film" of the history of the universe to see "who's right".

[cal]

It's also interesting that the multiverse theory does not get rid of fine tuning. When Gould explains it away using a clothes rack full of clothes, he ignores the fine tuned factory required to produce enough coats to get one that fits.

Of course that's true. When we explain the fine-tunedness of our universe by saying that it's just one in a huge number of randomly-tuned universes (and ours is the one that led to us), we have a more complicated situation than when we started.
But it's ALSO true, as I said, that if we say 'God made our universe', that we're ALSO complicating the situation by assuming a being that's able to actually CREATE our universe exists in the first place.
Both situations are possible, and both are complicated!

We'll probably all agree that it seems to defy logic and intuition that our universe didn't come from *anywhere*. Even I would have to agree with that. And of course I'm not saying that nothing like a creator can exist! But where we disagree is that I don't think a creator can exist without a cause or origin, whereas you do.

Still, I wouldn't be *too* surprised if in fact our universe didn't "come" from anywhere. Nothing's too weird for me anymore, after I started hearing about quantum physics. But when we're talking about weird occurences, it's easier for me personally to believe that a universe just "appeared out of nowhere" than a *creator* of a universe just "appeared out of nowhere".
Why? Because a creator has to be extremely complex to be able to make a universe. On the other hand, a universe can start out as an extremely hot ball of energy and become complex with time. Now which would one intuitively think of as more likely to "just appear" (assuming such a thing is possible at all) ? Clearly, IF something is going to appear out of nothing, there's a better chance that something simple would appear, not a fully-formed creator.

Now, we know that photons can appear (and disappear) from nowhere. So is it such a leap that maybe a hot *clump* of photons could appear in one higher dimension, for example? Because that's sort of what our universe was like in the first instant. That would be the big bang, as seen from inside our universe. It's insane, and probably wrong, but still *conceivable* given what we already know.

[August]

I honestly don't think I'm being disruptive or insulting, am I?

Not yet . Just joking....I, for one, appreciate the tone of our discussion. We welcome anyone who is truly searching for the truth, and has an open mind.

Are you a materialist?

How about: forming ideas in our minds about topics not related to our minute-to-minute personal survival. Using abstract concepts and analogies to come to rational conclusions about ourselves and about things completely unrelated to ourselves.

Can you expand a bit on the abstract concepts? Where do they come from? How do you arrive at rational conclusions? Would you say that thinking is the process by which we arrive at knowledge? Can you define knowledge please?

For the record, these are things we do best out of all life on the planet - but chimps do it too, and probably much better than many people realize. So do whales.

Proof?

Isn't it conceivable that a rationally-thinking being could arise without a creator? Why not? There's plenty of things we don't understand, so how can we shut out such a possiblity outright?

No. Please show how it is possible for a rational human to be here without a creator. To simply plead ignorance is a copout.

I'm sure not an expert on the matter, and I don't presume to know why it should or shouldn't be possible. I don't think any of us should.

On what basis do you then assert the existence of your rationality, which is the foundation of scientific thought? How do you reach the conclusion that it's not possible, without using rational thought and the laws of logic? And what makes you think it's not knowable?

Yikes, that would be worth a long essay! This is seriously fundamental philosophy, and I don't feel qualified to answer.

Thanks for trying! And fundamental philosophy underlies science, does it not?

I would tend to think we all here trust our senses and instruments (whatever they may be), no? For example, we can all measure the length of a stick using a ruler, and assign some sort of error to our measurement. Now, if we can do that again and again and always get the same result, we know we have consistency at least. But much better: if many other people ALSO get the same result, we start to strongly suspect that the stick is REALLY as long as we thought it was. That's what I would call "knowledge".

I agree that the senses are basically relaible. Can I summarize your definition of knowledge, and you can tell me where I go wrong? It's something that can be observed, and through repeated measurement, we confirm that the measurement is consistent, and that constitutes knowledge. Does the measurement of the other people constitute an outside objective source that confirms the accuracy of your knowledge then? How do you know that all of that is accurate though? After all, most people once believed in a flat earth, for example.

But you have still not answered my question. You have merely described repeated observation. My question was: Can you please explain logically how those observations are turned from sensation into knowledge, and how that knowledge is turned into predictions?

Of *course* it's possible we're all in a dream and living a grand illusion etc. etc. but even if it is, the point is that it's a *self-consistent* dreamworld we live in, and we can only work within its boundaries.

Please define self-consistent, and how do you know that it is "self-consistent"? What are the boundaries? Who defines those boundaries?

As for our senses: while it's true we can't KNOW that what we experience is 'true', here again all we can do is hope that if everyone agrees that something is red, or that it's raining - that our senses aren't deceiving us any more than the next guy's.

You base your knowledge on the hope that everyone else is not wrong? Where do you draw the line? With something as simplistic as a color, it's quite easy, but how about your origin of the universe theory? 3.5 billion people around the world says you are wrong. Who is 'everyone', and how can you possibly know that 'everyone' confirms the same thing? Did you, or anyone, observe the multiverse?

But these are deep philosophical problems that have little to do with science versus religion(!)

By whose definition? How can you arrive at scientific conclusions without having some sort of system that allows you to? Is science completely random?

If our instruments were not consistent - say, if a ruler gave a radically different length each time I measured the same stick - then yes, we would have no reliable theories about the world at all(!) Science is *only* possible at all because the world DOES make some sense to us. We see patterns that repeat, rules that seem to be followed everywhere in the universe the same way. We have a feeling we CAN begin to understand things, and that's only because our world isn't completely chaotic, and our senses and instruments DO work in ways we can describe and understand.

Where do those repeatable patterns come from? How about that 'feeling' that we can understand things? Where does that come from, is it sensed? Back to the senses, how do you know the ways in which your senses work? Do you have a sensation that tells you that? Do you then have a sensation that tells you that you are having a sensation that tells you that you are sensing something that is understandable? This leads to infinite regression.

But I DO believe things people tell me (when I have a reason to trust them), and my worldview is very satisfying to me. That's exactly why I said that Lewis' statement doesn't really make sense in the first place.

How do you know when to trust people? How does his statement not make sense? If there is no creator, then everything is random, i.e. accidental.

Of course I don't know my senses are always reliable, and I can't know for sure if I'm not in a dream world or not. But nobody can - belief in God or otherwise(!) I have my beliefs, you yours. That changes nothing about the fact that we all use our senses in the same way.

How do you know that "nobody can"? Just because it's inconceivable to you, does not mean that applies to everyone.

We'll have to agree to disagree here: I believe rational thought is possible without God, you don't. We can't argue much more on that point, I think, because we can't see the definitive "film" of the history of the universe to see "who's right".

OK, we can end it here if you want. But I don't accept your assertion that we 'can't see the definitive "film" of the history of the universe'. As a Christian, I believe we have that, in the Bible. It's up to you to prove the opposite. All you have done so far is described an unsupported theory, with no basis for how you can personally arrive at any conclusions regarding that theory, or any theory, for that matter.