No Beginning? How Did We Ever Arrive Here Then?

[djones]

So we know from the scriptures that matter and intelligence had no beginning. We've always existed albeit in a different form than we do now. So the question is how did we ever arrive here? If we've "always" existed then that means we've "always" been traveling toward where we are now. If you are always traveling toward something then you are never arriving.

 

It's like that problem of moving toward the wall half way each time. If you are always moving toward the wall but you only go half the distance each time will you ever hit the wall? The answer is no...you won't. You can't ever hit it if you only go half way each time. Likewise, an entity with no beginning cannot say that "someday" he'll be organized into something different because someday cannot exist if you are always only heading toward that.

 

Thoughts?

[3DOP]

So we know from the scriptures that matter and intelligence had no beginning. We've always existed albeit in a different form than we do now. So the question is how did we ever arrive here? If we've "always" existed then that means we've "always" been traveling toward where we are now. If you are always traveling toward something then you are never arriving.

 

It's like that problem of moving toward the wall half way each time. If you are always moving toward the wall but you only go half the distance each time will you ever hit the wall? The answer is no...you won't. You can't ever hit it if you only go half way each time. Likewise, an entity with no beginning cannot say that "someday" he'll be organized into something different because someday cannot exist if you are always only heading toward that.

 

Thoughts?

 

 No thoughts. Everybody has philosophical problems. If you can solve them fine. Mine are different than yours. I don't accept your premises. I can't solve mine until I allow that maybe I can't know what God cannot do. That only gives mystery. The problem remains, but the faithful soul doesn't care.

[MormonFreeThinker]

 

It's like that problem of moving toward the wall half way each time. If you are always moving toward the wall but you only go half the distance each time will you ever hit the wall? The answer is no...you won't. 

 

A past eternity is an interesting problem, but an absolute beginning of everything is a bigger problem. 

 

Here in an interesting NASA answer. 

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/060629a.html

 

Likewise, an entity with no beginning cannot say that "someday" he'll be organized into something different because someday cannot exist if you are always only heading toward that.

 

and a observer that lives outside time cannot do anything. How do you explain an absolute beginning? How can a observer live outside time? 

 

Here is a nice video about the Big Bang, but the cause is an unproven hypothesis. Even in a model of a universe that was created "out of nothing", some kind of field is still required that allows the creation of the universe to be possible

 

A Journey into a Black Hole

Edited July 18, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[MormonFreeThinker]

  The problem remains, but the faithful soul doesn't care.

 

That is anti-science thinking, we should care, science needs to progress. 

Edited July 18, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[3DOP]

That is anti-science thinking, we should care, science needs to progress. 

 

Free Thinker, hi. I did not intend to address anything about what is popularly or esoterically called "science". I offered no opinion about any science. I was admitting that all religions, including my own, have logical problems that different branches of philosophy raise.

 

As for needs in science...I do not agree or disagree...the concept of science having needs does not resonate with my way of thinking. But anyway, since you mention it, according to your way of looking at it, what will happen to "science" (however you understand it) if somehow its needs (progress) are not met? 

Edited July 18, 2014 by 3DOP

[Calm]

If you are always moving toward the wall but you only go half the distance each time will you ever hit the wall? The answer is no...you won't. You can't ever hit it if you only go half way?

And yet the reality is that we reach the wall.

My thoughts...you aren't taking in all the factors of reality.

[CV75]

So we know from the scriptures that matter and intelligence had no beginning. We've always existed albeit in a different form than we do now. So the question is how did we ever arrive here? If we've "always" existed then that means we've "always" been traveling toward where we are now. If you are always traveling toward something then you are never arriving.

 

It's like that problem of moving toward the wall half way each time. If you are always moving toward the wall but you only go half the distance each time will you ever hit the wall? The answer is no...you won't. You can't ever hit it if you only go half way each time. Likewise, an entity with no beginning cannot say that "someday" he'll be organized into something different because someday cannot exist if you are always only heading toward that.

 

Thoughts?

Faith and grace. You envision the arrival perfectly and so it is. Faith takes us part of the way; grace the rest.

[changed]

We believe in the doctrine of eternal progression - there is no end to Glory, no end to love... If you could hie to Kolob, you know?  but then progression (not mere survival) is what makes something alive.  The difference between a rock and a plant?  Plants grow, stop growing, and I think you stop living.  

[Nofear]

The Big Bang Theory technically does not start at t=0. We almost always assume it does because we haven't the foggiest how to digress from that, but still the theory can only technically go back to a really, really, dense state. Cosmologists are divided about how to proceed past that.
 
For my part, my working speculation is that the universe asymptotically diverged from the singular state. That is to say, it was only infinitely dense at the infinite past (i.e. never). At some point (approximately 13.8 billion years ago) a phase transition occurred and the observations that are best currently modeled by the Big Bang Theory come into play. Now, this model does have some significant theological implications. While intelligences are uncreate they would not have been able to operate intelligently before this "big bang" transition (universe was simply too chaotic and unmanageable). But until we have an operational understanding of spirit matter any LDS cosmology can only be speculative at best.
 
 
But, as for specifically addressing the OP, Zeno's Paradox is interesting and people are divided as to whether it is simply a mathematical puzzle or a metaphysical dilemma. I personally tend more to the mathematical puzzle side.

[Zeta-Flux]

The easiest answer to the philosophical conundrum is simply to draw the graph of functions like e^x or 1/x.

[ERayR]

So we know from the scriptures that matter and intelligence had no beginning. We've always existed albeit in a different form than we do now. So the question is how did we ever arrive here? If we've "always" existed then that means we've "always" been traveling toward where we are now. If you are always traveling toward something then you are never arriving.

 

It's like that problem of moving toward the wall half way each time. If you are always moving toward the wall but you only go half the distance each time will you ever hit the wall? The answer is no...you won't. You can't ever hit it if you only go half way each time. Likewise, an entity with no beginning cannot say that "someday" he'll be organized into something different because someday cannot exist if you are always only heading toward that.

 

Thoughts?

 

Ahh the paradox of infinity.  It is very difficult for our finite mines to grasp the concept of infinity.

[ERayR]

That is anti-science thinking, we should care, science needs to progress. 

 

Science is not God and should not be worshiped. 

[MormonFreeThinker]

Science is not God and should not be worshiped. 

 

I don't worship science, I am a religious believer. 

[ERayR]

I don't worship science, I am a religious believer. 

 

Your posts speak otherwise.

[MormonFreeThinker]

Your posts speak otherwise.

 

How is that worshiping science? and you accuse me of not being capable of having a dialogue. 

[thesometimesaint]

Because all the known laws of physics breakdown at t-0. Thus for anything before t-0 is a contraction in terms. .A phase change has been suggested to solve the problem of t-0  Or a multiverse of infinite branes is also possible. For that we go to the philosophy/religion of God or Gods. For me as long as God does it, however he did it, that's fine with me.

[Thinking]

It's like that problem of moving toward the wall half way each time. If you are always moving toward the wall but you only go half the distance each time will you ever hit the wall? The answer is no...you won't. You can't ever hit it if you only go half way each time. Likewise, an entity with no beginning cannot say that "someday" he'll be organized into something different because someday cannot exist if you are always only heading toward that.

 

Paradoxes aside, here we are, and by the way you do reach that wall.

[thesometimesaint]

Paradoxes aside, here we are, and by the way you do reach that wall.

 

Agreed, but in the LDS religion there is no wall per say to reach. Eternal Progression works for the Gods and their children.

[Thinking]

Agreed, but in the LDS religion there is no wall per say to reach. Eternal Progression works for the Gods and their children.

 

I would classify the judgment as a wall -  a wall that has different doors for you to pass through on your journey through eternity.

[thesometimesaint]

I would classify the judgment as a wall -  a wall that has different doors for you to pass through on your journey through eternity.

 

There are some that suggest that. However I'm not convinced. For me Eternal Progression is somewhat like a clock. All three hands are moving at different rates, but they never can catch up with each other.

[djones]

Obviously our finite minds can't grasp the concept of "always existing" in one state and then all of a sudden not existing in that state. Arguing about it is pointless but it makes for an interesting discussion.

 

Here's how I like to think of the universe in visual terms. Imagine a giant wall of creation. We think of the universe in 3D since we are right in the middle of it. We are in the middle of things that have been created and organized. But obviously there are areas where "there is space there" and unorganized matter exists. So imagine that if you zoomed WAY out from all of creation. God's domain obviously has an end. It's not infinite. We can't number his creations but they are numbered to him. He had a beginning as a God and therefore so did his creations. So if you zoom way out you would see all of God's creations on one clump. Then I like to imagine that next to his clump is another God's clump/universe of creation. And so on and so forth. All of these clumps are part of the big wall of creation. If you were zoomed way out as an observer into the "unorganized area" I like to imagine that you'd see this enormous wall of stars that goes up, down, left, right, and behind to infinity. And looking forward where the observer is standing is unorganized matter and intelligence floating around in the same fashion. Up, down, left, right, and forward to infinity. Then the Gods just keep marching forward creating more and more, adding to and expanding their clump.  And as they move forward they occupy more of the unorganized space and start filling it up.

 

Thinking of it that way makes a little more sense. The matter and intelligence has always existed UP until the Gods ran into it. Then things changed and time began for the matter/intelligences....

[BCSpace]

So we know from the scriptures that matter and intelligence had no beginning. We've always existed albeit in a different form than we do now. So the question is how did we ever arrive here? If we've "always" existed then that means we've "always" been traveling toward where we are now. If you are always traveling toward something then you are never arriving.

 

 

I agree that the doctrine is that the materials that comprise us has always existed in some form or another.  Physics tells us that.  However, my quesiton would be, have we always been self aware?  My initial thinking is that the answer is no.

Edited July 18, 2014 by BCSpace

[ERayR]

I agree that the doctrine is that the materials that comprise us has always existed in some form or another.  Physics tells us that.  However, my quesiton would be, have we always been self aware?  My initial thinking is that the answer is no.

 

My question then is what switched on self awareness? 

[Ahab]

Obviously our finite minds can't grasp the concept of "always existing" in one state and then all of a sudden not existing in that state. Arguing about it is pointless but it makes for an interesting discussion.

It's really not that hard to grasp. Before you were born in heaven you existed as parts of your parents in heaven, and then you were born and existed in another state.

[Nofear]

I agree that the doctrine is that the materials that comprise us has always existed in some form or another.  Physics tells us that.  However, my quesiton would be, have we always been self aware?  My initial thinking is that the answer is no.

 

Uh oh... that would have us agreeing on something vaguely scientific.