The End Of Matter?

[TheSkepticChristian]

TheSkepticChristian needs to read a few more college level textbooks and refrain from speculating on jr high school science.  Too many people on this board are dabbling in junk science.

 

LOL funny

Edited July 26, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian

[thesometimesaint]

The above quote and others in the link seem to preclude any new matter. So are you suggesting that while LDS gods cannot create matter, they may be able to anyway? Or just reenergize it? But energizing it doesn't seem to help ultimate scarcity.

 

There is nothing in physics that precludes a new singularity,and a new Big Bang forming tomorrow or at some far distant time. As we all know that if something isn't prohibited it is permissible even if extremely rare. TTBOMK By far the most prevalent attitude among the LDS is that God always works within natural laws. Even if we don't know them at this time. Myself, I believe God works within natural laws, except when his purposes require he work outside them. But those are few and far between. So I'm fine with the Gods saying "Let there be light" whenever it meets their purposes. 

[Joshua Valentine]

There is nothing in physics that precludes a new singularity,and a new Big Bang forming tomorrow or at some far distant time. As we all know that if something isn't prohibited it is permissible even if extremely rare. TTBOMK By far the most prevalent attitude among the LDS is that God always works within natural laws. Even if we don't know them at this time. Myself, I believe God works within natural laws, except when his purposes require he work outside them. But those are few and far between. So I'm fine with the Gods saying "Let there be light" whenever it meets their purposes.

Do you consider this to be in contradiction to Joseph's teachings, but that is ok with you? Or do you deny that it contradicts his teachings? Or do you just deny my conclusion about the implications of his teachings?

To me, the necessary requirements for an infinite amount matter are excluded by Joseph's teaching that matter has no beginning. To postulate that gods can just make it, in direct contradiction, or that Joseph was describing "natural law actions"and you ascribing "non-natural law actions" seems a bit of a stretch or ad hoc.. Unless you have an authoritative source?

[thesometimesaint]

Do you consider this to be in contradiction to Joseph's teachings, but that is ok with you? Or do you deny that it contradicts his teachings? Or do you just deny my conclusion about the implications of his teachings?

To me, the necessary requirements for an infinite amount matter are excluded by Joseph's teaching that matter has no beginning. To postulate that gods can just make it, in direct contradiction, or that Joseph was describing "natural law actions"and you ascribing "non-natural law actions" seems a bit of a stretch or ad hoc.. Unless you have an authoritative source?

 

I don't consider it a contradiction. JS for all his many good ideas was no scientist and there is nothing in his record that shows he had a record of good science prognostication behind him. As we know the elements are not eternal. It doesn't bother me a bit that he got that part wrong. That was a popular idea of his time.and it was about 60 years after his death that the trans-uranium elements were starting to be discovered. Galileo, hundreds of years before JS, pretty well sums up my ideas about religious leaders determining science. "The Church can tell me how to go to Heaven, but not how the heavens go".

 

I don't know if it is infinite or not. Though I dearly would love to find out. I suspect that about 97% of the energy/matter in the universe is unknown. So if finite it is still a very large amount greater than what we assumed.  I don't believe it is ever a good idea to tell God what he can and can't do. I wouldn't say non-natural just unknown at this time. I'm the best authority there is on my beliefs.

Edited July 26, 2015 by thesometimesaint

[Joshua Valentine]

I don't consider it a contradiction. JS for all his many good ideas was no scientist and there is nothing in his record that shows he had a record of good science prognostication behind him. As we know the elements are not eternal. It doesn't bother me a bit that he got that part wrong. That was a popular idea of his time.and it was about 60 years after his death that the trans-uranium elements were starting to be discovered. Galileo, hundreds of years before JS, pretty well sums up my ideas about religious leaders determining science. "The Church can tell me how to go to Heaven, but not how the heavens go".

 

I don't know if it is infinite or not. Though I dearly would love to find out. I suspect that about 97% of the energy/matter in the universe is unknown. So if finite it is still a very large amount greater than what we assumed.  I don't believe it is ever a good idea to tell God what he can and can't do. I wouldn't say non-natural just unknown at this time. I'm the best authority there is on my beliefs.

 

thesometimesaint, I appreciate the authoritative citation   

 

I once had a co-worker who I asked about his conception of evolution and God's creation of animals/humans. The short of the story is that I found his theory needlessly diminished the knowledge and power of God. And he was a non-LDS/biblical/otherwise traditional Christian! I asked him why he thought it necessary to go extraneously far in his reconciliation of a Creator and evolution and warned him that one should question their position before they allow it to limit God.

 

I agree with your statement, "I don't believe it is ever a good idea to tell God what he can and can't do." I suppose, somehow, Joseph's revelation/teaching on matter does not tell God that he didn't and can't create matter, and that he is unable to create something independently of anything other than his power, otherwise known as ex nihilo?

[TheSkepticChristian]

 

 

What do you think? Is there something wrong with what I just said? 

 

Do you agree atoms gets destroyed by spaghettification when they enter a black hole? 

Edited July 26, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian

[mfbukowski]

True, but is simply a scientific model. There are other models for an eternal universe. We do not know the answer. 

1.Perhaps the universe is finite, but had no cause.  2. Perhaps a God create it 3. Perhaps our Universe is infinite.      4. Perhaps the Big Bang literally happened everywhere 

 

LDS theology doesn't teach that God created the universe.

 

Dr. Hellings is open to many possibilities, see 26:30 to 27:50

 

 

 

So do you have the right answer? Scientists are looking for answers.

 

I am still waiting for someone to answer my question.

 

What caused the photon that is hitting your eye? 

What causes virtual particles?

As Hume showed 200 years ago, your question does not make sense.

What was the cause of YOUR existence? The gleam in your daddy's eye? Your 14th great grandparents? An amphibian crawling ashore our of a primordial sea? The Big Bang? The person who introduced the person to the person who introduced your parents? Their 14th great grandparents?

All of the above? None of the above?

It is a semantic question nothing more or less

Ex nihilo creation?

Why should we believe the bible at all? Why should we believe everything has a definable "cause" when all that is is a semantic description?

There is no answer possible to your question because it is not a question. It is like asking why snow is snow, or why there is anything rather than nothing. Words signifying nothing.

[mfbukowski]

Now that we've processed some QM...

IF Joseph was right - that matter cannot be created.

And

IF we understand him correctly as meaning not just that gods can't create matter, but that matter is such a thing that there cannot become more of it.

THEN, by definition, there is a finite amount of matter

And

Given enough time there will not be any more matter to produce another generation.

There are other implications but this is the most straightforward.

So, yes, it will eventually be the end of matter.

Does anyone have a good way to avoid this?

Uh, yes.

It's called the law of conservation of matter.

[Joshua Valentine]

Uh, yes.It's called the law of conservation of matter.

How does the law of the conservation of matter help with the ultimately limited amount of matter that causes an end to future generations of spirit children and thus an end to eternal increase? Help me out here.

[mfbukowski]

Don't think anyone can help you with that theory, sorry.

[Joshua Valentine]

Don't think anyone can help you with that theory, sorry.

 

I could take this as meaning that you agree with me.  Something about the tone of your pixels makes me doubt that.  So if no one can help me, and it's not because you think I have reasoned correctly, then you must think there is a problem with determining that Joseph saying that matter has no beginning precludes the creation of more matter than there already is and if there can be no more matter, then there can't be an infinite amount, and so the finite amount will run out, given enough time (and generations of spirit-bodies and resurrected bodies taking up the available limited amount of matter).

 

I don't believe I have made any stretches here or even any complex steps.  I would assume, if I had made a mistake in reasoning, you would be willing to correct me.  And yet you seem not to.  Either that means you can't (because I appear to you to be right) or you won't.  But why wouldn't you if you can?

 

Hmm. Maybe you just don't feel like it. I'm just trying to answer the OP based on the teachings of Joseph.

Hope you have a good day tomorrow mfbukowski and all,

Joshua Valentine

Edited July 27, 2015 by Joshua Valentine

[thesometimesaint]

What do you think? Is there something wrong with what I just said? 

 

Do you agree atoms gets destroyed by spaghettification when they enter a black hole? 

 

Nothing particularly wrong. I would put a slightly different Top Quark spin on it though.

 

I never said that atoms don't get destroyed. We do it in atom smashers and atomic bombs. The total amount of energy and matter remains the same, but more diffuse. E=MC(squared) still works even in Black Holes. At past the Event Horizon even light can't escape the pull of gravity.

[longview]

I could take this as meaning that you agree with me.  Something about the tone of your pixels makes me doubt that.  So if no one can help me, and it's not because you think I have reasoned correctly, then you must think there is a problem with determining that Joseph saying that matter has no beginning precludes the creation of more matter than there already is and if there can be no more matter, then there can't be an infinite amount, and so the finite amount will run out, given enough time (and generations of spirit-bodies and resurrected bodies taking up the available limited amount of matter).

 

I don't believe I have made any stretches here or even any complex steps.  I would assume, if I had made a mistake in reasoning, you would be willing to correct me.  And yet you seem not to.  Either that means you can't (because I appear to you to be right) or you won't.  But why wouldn't you if you can?

 

Hmm. Maybe you just don't feel like it. I'm just trying to answer the OP based on the teachings of Joseph.

Hope you have a good day tomorrow mfbukowski and all,

Joshua Valentine

When I was about 10 years old, I had an amazing and powerful spiritual experience.  The gist of it was this simple question:  "Was there a beginning of beginnings?"  I knew then there were many imponderables in life, that I could think about some of them but NOT be overwrought about any of them.  But the spirit impressed this question upon me very mightily.  I was shaken to the core.  Since that day I mulled over the question and in about a year or two, I came to the calm conviction that things have always existed.  The Big Bang Theory and Multiverses and string theories, etc, are all based on speculations and assumptions.  In earlier threads I have proposed a possible alternative to account for the "red shift" in photons, which would negate the Big Bang if proved true.

 

It makes sense that matter does NOT come out of nothing.  If God was to command the elements to come into being, they would have to come out of some other dimensions or out of another "energy" state.  It is interesting to see that electromagnetism has at least two dimensions:  one for electrical fluctuations and the other for magnetic fluctuations.  Just because matter may not be "generated" on an ongoing basis does not necessarily mean the Universe is finite, neither does it mean that matter is being "used up."   My personal "speculation" is that everything eventually decays but everything gets "recycled" from one state to another, or transmute from one set of dimensions to another set (however many sets there are) in a series.  This would negate entropy if that is what you are concerned about.

 

I have no real way of knowing whether the universe is finite or infinite.  Unless you were to study the "revelations" that might be embedded in the hymn:  "Hie to Kolob."

[thesometimesaint]

Show your evidence for a steady state universe beyond the ruminations of a 10 year old child. Heck show your evidence that Pi equals exactly three as stated in your Bible.

Edited July 27, 2015 by thesometimesaint

[Ahab]

How does the law of the conservation of matter help with the ultimately limited amount of matter that causes an end to future generations of spirit children and thus an end to eternal increase? Help me out here.

A limited amount of matter doesn't necessarily equate to us (our kind of being) having an end to future generations. As long as existing matter can be created/organized/reorganized/converted/reconverted into other forms of matter, why would you think we would ever need more than there already is?

[sethpayne]

A limited amount of matter doesn't necessarily equate to us (our kind of being) having an end to future generations. As long as existing matter can be created/organized/reorganized/converted/reconverted into other forms of matter, why would you think we would ever need more than there already is?

 

Because if matter is finite, eventually it will all be in the form of exalted beings.  Nothing left to organize, reorganize, etc...  

 

I suppose I"m not following "a limited amount of matter doesn't necessarily equate to us" in the context of Joseph's theology given that he was explicit that matter is matter.  "Spirit" is made of matter.  Are you suggesting some substance or essence that is not "spirit?"

[longview]

Show your evidence for a steady state universe beyond the ruminations of a 10 year old child. Heck show your evidence that Pi equals exactly three as stated in your Bible.

So you believe a young child is incapable of experiencing spiritual revelations?  You would discount Samuel the Seer's amazing childhood?

[mfbukowski]

I could take this as meaning that you agree with me.  Something about the tone of your pixels makes me doubt that.  So if no one can help me, and it's not because you think I have reasoned correctly, then you must think there is a problem with determining that Joseph saying that matter has no beginning precludes the creation of more matter than there already is and if there can be no more matter, then there can't be an infinite amount, and so the finite amount will run out, given enough time (and generations of spirit-bodies and resurrected bodies taking up the available limited amount of matter).

 

I don't believe I have made any stretches here or even any complex steps.  I would assume, if I had made a mistake in reasoning, you would be willing to correct me.  And yet you seem not to.  Either that means you can't (because I appear to you to be right) or you won't.  But why wouldn't you if you can?

 

Hmm. Maybe you just don't feel like it. I'm just trying to answer the OP based on the teachings of Joseph.

Hope you have a good day tomorrow mfbukowski and all,

Joshua Valentine

Thanks - it was a great day.  Have one yourself!

 

We are light years apart and I don't feel like re-creating the history of philosophy so we can have a discussion that will go nowhere anyway.

 

There are so many complicated assumptions there that I see the argument as, problematic in the extreme, let's just leave it there!

[mfbukowski]

When I was about 10 years old, I had an amazing and powerful spiritual experience.  The gist of it was this simple question:  "Was there a beginning of beginnings?"  I knew then there were many imponderables in life, that I could think about some of them but NOT be overwrought about any of them.  But the spirit impressed this question upon me very mightily.  I was shaken to the core.  Since that day I mulled over the question and in about a year or two, I came to the calm conviction that things have always existed.  The Big Bang Theory and Multiverses and string theories, etc, are all based on speculations and assumptions.  In earlier threads I have proposed a possible alternative to account for the "red shift" in photons, which would negate the Big Bang if proved true.

 

It makes sense that matter does NOT come out of nothing.  If God was to command the elements to come into being, they would have to come out of some other dimensions or out of another "energy" state.  It is interesting to see that electromagnetism has at least two dimensions:  one for electrical fluctuations and the other for magnetic fluctuations.  Just because matter may not be "generated" on an ongoing basis does not necessarily mean the Universe is finite, neither does it mean that matter is being "used up."   My personal "speculation" is that everything eventually decays but everything gets "recycled" from one state to another, or transmute from one set of dimensions to another set (however many sets there are) in a series.  This would negate entropy if that is what you are concerned about.

 

I have no real way of knowing whether the universe is finite or infinite.  Unless you were to study the "revelations" that might be embedded in the hymn:  "Hie to Kolob."

Agreed.

 

There are so many ambiguous terms in any of these hypotheses that they are virtually meaningless.  How much matter precisely is in the universe?  What is the mass of a resurrected being made of spirit matter?  How much does God weigh?  How many people will actually be exalted?  How many other universes are there?  What does "infinite" mean with the possibility of other universes?

 

Get out the pencils! 

 

Somehow I am not too worried about it.

 

This is not even a scientific question, it's just meaningless words strung together.  It is a category mistake.  I cannot even imagine how such statements could be true or false or what that even means

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

Edited July 28, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Joshua Valentine]

Thanks - it was a great day.  Have one yourself!

 

We are light years apart and I don't feel like re-creating the history of philosophy so we can have a discussion that will go nowhere anyway.

 

There are so many complicated assumptions there that I see the argument as, problematic in the extreme, let's just leave it there!

 

 

Agreed.

 

There are so many ambiguous terms in any of these hypotheses that they are virtually meaningless.  How much matter precisely is in the universe?  What is the mass of a resurrected being made of spirit matter?  How much does God weigh?  How many people will actually be exalted?  How many other universes are there?  What does "infinite" mean with the possibility of other universes?

 

Get out the pencils! 

 

Somehow I am not too worried about it.

 

This is not even a scientific question, it's just meaningless words strung together.  It is a category mistake.  I cannot even imagine how such statements could be true or false or what that even means

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

 

See you've begun to give me some idea of what you meant by "complicated assumptions".  Of course there are, the question becomes are they significant?  If there is a limited amount of matter, and if matter is required to make new resurrected humans, then there is a limit to how many resurrected humans there can be.  This, in itself, is not complicated. Now if you want to insert a bunch of other possibilities that have nothing to do with Joseph's teachings on matter, that is something completely different - and, yes, it will get us nowhere.  But, then, the same could be said about ANY other topic, at all.

 

But, just tell me this mfbukowski, since you see this as "just meaningless words strung together", do you also see Joseph's teachings on matter as "just meaningless words strung together"? Please note, I am not asking whether you think they are authoritative or inspired or not, simply if you think they are still ultimately meaningless to us in the same philosophical way you do the rest of this. 

 

P.S. - perhaps you could throw a dog a bone and give me a webpage link to inform me on just one of the most critical parts of that history of philosophy that you don't want to go over with me.  Thanks.

[thesometimesaint]

So you believe a young child is incapable of experiencing spiritual revelations?  You would discount Samuel the Seer's amazing childhood?

 

Sure they can, but not many would turn the keys to their car over to a ten year old. Simply because that 10 year old claimed to have had a spiritual experience of how to drive one.

Edited July 28, 2015 by thesometimesaint

[mfbukowski]

See you've begun to give me some idea of what you meant by "complicated assumptions".  Of course there are, the question becomes are they significant?  If there is a limited amount of matter, and if matter is required to make new resurrected humans, then there is a limit to how many resurrected humans there can be.  This, in itself, is not complicated. Now if you want to insert a bunch of other possibilities that have nothing to do with Joseph's teachings on matter, that is something completely different - and, yes, it will get us nowhere.  But, then, the same could be said about ANY other topic, at all.

 

But, just tell me this mfbukowski, since you see this as "just meaningless words strung together", do you also see Joseph's teachings on matter as "just meaningless words strung together"? Please note, I am not asking whether you think they are authoritative or inspired or not, simply if you think they are still ultimately meaningless to us in the same philosophical way you do the rest of this. 

 

P.S. - perhaps you could throw a dog a bone and give me a webpage link to inform me on just one of the most critical parts of that history of philosophy that you don't want to go over with me.  Thanks.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/#4

 

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/65602-on-the-deflationary-theory/?p=1209510236

[longview]

Sure they can, but not many would turn the keys to their car over to a ten year old. Simply because that 10 year old claimed to have had a spiritual experience of how to drive one.

Your arguments sound disjointed.  Let me see if I can reconstruct your points:

 

1- children CAN receive revelations

 

2- BUT children CANNOT be trusted with having revelations

 

3- receiving revelations is a priesthood responsibility

 

4- the child MUST be authorized to use this KEY before having a revelation?

 

5- who must do the authorizing?

 

6- what does having a revelation about the steady state universe have to do with having a revelation about driving a car?

 

7- if you are saying that you do NOT trust my experience as a 10 year old, then why don't you just say so?

 

You might need to consider the possibility that your "worship" of certain tenets about science "facts" could be a form of idolatry?  Both you and me should always be open to repentance (i.e. change for the better).

Edited July 28, 2015 by longview

[thesometimesaint]

Your arguments sound disjointed.  Let me see if I can reconstruct your points:

 

1- children CAN receive revelations

 

2- BUT children CANNOT be trusted with having revelations

 

3- receiving revelations is a priesthood responsibility

 

4- the child MUST be authorized to use this KEY before having a revelation?

 

5- who must do the authorizing?

 

6- what does having a revelation about the steady state universe have to do with having a revelation about driving a car?

 

7- 

 

Would you personally turn the keys to your car to a 10 year old. Simply because they claimed to have revelation for God that you should?

 

Is Pi equal to exactly three? Do axeheads float? Does putting a stick in the ground change the genetics of farm animals? Where can I find a Cockatrice? These, and many more, are claimed to be revelation by prophets of God in the Bible. More to the point Joseph Field Smith claimed that man would never be in space or on the moon. He was a Apostle, Prophet, Seer, Revelator of God making a prophecy at the time.

 

May 14, 1961 - Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith announces to stake conference in Honolulu:

JFS wrote:We will never get a man into space. This earth is man's sphere and it was never intended that he should get away from it...

The moon is a superior planet to the earth and it was never intended that man should go there. You can write it down in your books that this will never happen.

 

Finally the steady state universe idea has been rejected by science. The Cosmic Background Radiation Map disproves it. So your "revelation" for God has no bearing on reality. 

[Zakuska]

Is Pi equal to exactly three?

 

Depends on if its inside the correct function  Math.Round(Pi) = 3

 

You also conveniently discarded the "Handbreadth" in the measurement. The Bible actually estimates Pi closer than do other measuring systems of the time, When one takes the handbreedth into account.

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwik75Wqp_7GAhWFFZIKHZVHB9I&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcreation.com%2Fdoes-the-bible-say-pi-equals-3&ei=B7a3VeTPBIWryASVj52QDQ&usg=AFQjCNE3avzYKLoYDoOj7-bvdoo947vqoQ&sig2=QvCWzDmdGsxdWXsVEv01Tg

 

 

Do axeheads float?

 

If they are hollow or have a piece of wood wedged in them such as a broken ax handle, its possible. Also... axes at the time where made from all kinds things.  Not just stone or Iron.

 

Does putting a stick in the ground change the genetics of farm animals?

 

Certian substances when injested are shown to cause certian chemical reactions and balances which favor one sex over the other.  Google: The Dr. Shettles Method (How to choose the sex of your Baby?  90% Sucess rate in studies. )

 

Where can I find a Cockatrice?

 

Stupid example since its an artifact of translation.  "As far as it is translated correctly" and all.

 

Edited July 28, 2015 by Zakuska