In the Beginning....

[mfbukowski]

42 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

But definitely not Albany.

That word??

Watch your language, now!!  😠

 

 

[Stargazer]

On 3/29/2022 at 8:54 PM, pogi said:

For me personally, it makes a lot more sense than saying "suddenly there it was" in regards to a particle that was unimaginably dense and contained the building blocks of all that exists in the universe. 

Suddenly there it was?  Something (literally everything, actually) from a "null set" of nothingness?  If that is not creation ex-nihlo, I don't know what is.  In terms of physics, eternal existence of matter/energy makes a lot more sense than "poof" the building blocks of all that exists appearing out of nothing and from nothing and of nothing.  

From the point of view of the nonexistent nothingness that prevailed in whatever region of whatever-it-was, suddenly it appeared out of nowhere.

But from the point of view of what began to expand from that point, it was just a change of venue.

[pogi]

41 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

From the point of view of the nonexistent nothingness that prevailed in whatever region of whatever-it-was, suddenly it appeared out of nowhere.

But from the point of view of what began to expand from that point, it was just a change of venue.

Are you saying that the creation of the "singularity" was ex-nihlo, but that the creation mentioned in the Bible only constitutes the expansion of the universe and is therefore not-ex-nihlo? 

Either way, I can't wrap my head around the idea of the singularity just popping into existence from nothing.  That seems harder to grasp to me than eternal existence of matter/energy. 

What do you mean by "change of venue"?  It seems like the same venue of nothingness that the outskirts of the universe is expanding in.    I don't personally believe there is nothingness beyond this universe though.  That idea seems much more difficult to grasp than the idea of a universe expanding within another larger mother universe (we da little baby growing inside the womb), without end.

Edited March 31, 2022 by pogi

[3DOP]

On 3/27/2022 at 3:38 PM, webbles said:

The bolded is very interesting to me because if we were created by God out of nothing, then we technically can not disobey Him.  At the time of creation, He knew (because of His omniscience) exactly what we would do.  He knew what "disobedience" we would perform so He got to decide what disobedience would occur by choosing which humans and angels are created.  It is similar to computer programs.  When I create a computer program, I know what it will do at the time of creation.  So if it "disobeys" me, it is only because I programmed it to disobey me.

Even when we disobey God, we are actually obeying Him.  Because He planned it that way.

webbles, hi.

Like you, I agree that God cannot do what is illogical. He cannot make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it. But with God, I want to be careful about saying that only if He does not know what will happen, can He create beings with free will. I understand your reasoning and see the paradox. 

In any case, Catholics believe that we have free will, are responsible for actions, and that an Omniscient and Almighty God will be exonerated of any wrong doing at the Last Judgment. I think I could call it a mystery, because I do not know how to escape your logic. But that is because I doubt that I know how God creates a soul with free will. I frankly thought the artificial intelligence answer of Miserere was useful. I would hate to arrive at Judgement Day and tell God that I didn't believe He was so great because that makes Him guilty of this or that. And this too...is a finite God going to be upset at me on Judgement Day for thinking He was more capable than He really is?

I appreciate your reply, and hope mine sheds light on the way Catholics might approach your objection.

Rory 

[Stargazer]

On 3/31/2022 at 11:53 PM, pogi said:

Are you saying that the creation of the "singularity" was ex-nihlo, but that the creation mentioned in the Bible only constitutes the expansion of the universe and is therefore not-ex-nihlo? 

No. 

For a start, the Bible's explanation in Genesis only pertains to this earth/solar system. It says nothing about the universe as a whole. The solar system was created from the material that appeared at the singularity at the time of the Big Bang. In other words, not creatio ex nihilo.

The singularity was matter and energy that came from elsewhere (or elsewhen), but if you had been standing next to the point of the singularity when it popped into being, it might have appeared to have come from nowhere. Thus, locally, and locally only, it may have appeared to have been creatio ex nihilo. But it wasn't.

Sheesh, I'm trying to explain the unexplainable. Words are inadequate to do so. Let me try again.

In the beginning there was no space, nor time, in the "place" from which the the Big Bang emanated, there was nothing, and in fact less than nothing. Then suddenly the entire universe in the form of a singularity appeared -- from somewhere else, obviously -- but from the point of view of that point of nothingness, it was as if it came from nothing. Or, in other words, the point of nothingness "saw" something arise, which could be seen as ex-nihilo, but wasn't in actual fact ex-nihilo. But it looked like it, because outside of that point there was nothing. 

But the "place" from which the Big Bang emanated didn't exist. It is even arguable that there was no singularity, or that what we describe as the Big Bang didn't exist at all. Hawking said the universe arose out of nothing, but that's no explanation either. What existed prior to the Big Bang is mathematically undefined and meaningless. At least in modern physics.

I'm saying it came from somewhere/somewhen else, but it appears to have come from nowhere/nowhen.

There is also a school of thought which says that our universe is actually a black hole. And because whatever is inside the event horizon of a black hole is unknowable to whatever is outside of the black hole, it seems to have come about ex nihilo, but in actuality it didn't.

On 3/31/2022 at 11:53 PM, pogi said:

Either way, I can't wrap my head around the idea of the singularity just popping into existence from nothing.  That seems harder to grasp to me than eternal existence of matter/energy. 

What do you mean by "change of venue"?  It seems like the same venue of nothingness that the outskirts of the universe is expanding in.    I don't personally believe there is nothingness beyond this universe though.  That idea seems much more difficult to grasp than the idea of a universe expanding within another larger mother universe (we da little baby growing inside the womb), without end.

I've tried to wrap my head around these things many times. I always get vertigo as a result. 

As to impossible things and the believing thereof:

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

With all due reverence to Lewis Carroll, who seems to have grasped that reality is something that we, in reality, cannot possibly understand.

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Stargazer

[longview]

10 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

But the "place" from which the Big Bang emanated didn't exist. It is even arguable that there was no singularity, or that what we describe as the Big Bang didn't exist at all.

You and I had a discussion about a Universe of many dimensions several months ago.  What if there are 24 dimensions as some scientists speculate?  What if we are only able to discern up to 6 dimensions through some kind of laboratory work (Large Hadron Collider)?  And the other 18 dimensions could only be explored using mind-bending advanced mathematics?  What if our "6 dimensions" were originally empty or non-discernable?

10 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Hawking said the universe arose out of nothing, but that's no explanation either. What existed prior to the Big Bang is mathematically undefined and meaningless. At least in modern physics.

I'm saying it came from somewhere/somewhen else, but it appears to have come from nowhere/nowhen.

What if God started the process of transforming something from the "other 18 dimensions" to create/organize our current visible universe?

[Stargazer]

2 minutes ago, longview said:

You and I had a discussion about a Universe of many dimensions several months ago.  What if there are 24 dimensions as some scientists speculate?  What if we are only able to discern up to 6 dimensions through some kind of laboratory work (Large Hadron Collider)?  And the other 18 dimensions could only be explored using mind-bending advanced mathematics?  What if our "6 dimensions" were originally empty or non-discernable?

What if God started the process of transforming something from the "other 18 dimensions" to create/organize our current visible universe?

Yes, What if? 

As physicist Richard Feynman once said, "If you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics."

And as it is said of the Tao: "The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name."

Our Trinitarian brethren like to think of God as something unknowable, beyond understanding, and they're actually right (but not in the way they think). And just as He is beyond our mortal ken while we are in mortality, so also is His universe which He has created for us. But the time will come when we shall understand, because we will see it as it is.

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, 3DOP said:

webbles, hi.

Like you, I agree that God cannot do what is illogical. He cannot make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it. But with God, I want to be careful about saying that only if He does not know what will happen, can He create beings with free will. I understand your reasoning and see the paradox. 

In any case, Catholics believe that we have free will, are responsible for actions, and that an Omniscient and Almighty God will be exonerated of any wrong doing at the Last Judgment. I think I could call it a mystery, because I do not know how to escape your logic. But that is because I doubt that I know how God creates a soul with free will. I frankly thought the artificial intelligence answer of Miserere was useful. I would hate to arrive at Judgement Day and tell God that I didn't believe He was so great because that makes Him guilty of this or that. And this too...is a finite God going to be upset at me on Judgement Day for thinking He was more capable than He really is?

I appreciate your reply, and hope mine sheds light on the way Catholics might approach your objection.

Rory 

It's easy to escape the idea that if God KNOW something, He causes it.

You put cookies in front of a 3 year old and tell them not to eat them. You leave the room.

He eats some cookies.

Did you "cause" them to be eaten?

If you know when the next full moon will be, did you cause the full moon to happen?

Of course not.

Accurately predicting something does not cause it to happen

Hope you are ok after the recent tornadoes in your neck of the woods, praying for you

 

[3DOP]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

It's easy to escape the idea that if God KNOW something, He causes it.

You put cookies in front of a 3 year old and tell them not to eat them. You leave the room.

He eats some cookies.

Did you "cause" them to be eaten?

If you know when the next full moon will be, did you cause the full moon to happen?

Of course not.

Accurately predicting something does not cause it to happen

Hope you are ok after the recent tornadoes in your neck of the woods, praying for you

 

Hey Mark! Thanks for your help in supporting my position. Thanks for your kind words and well wishes. We're doing very okay out here in middle America. 

Your friend in Jesus and Mary,

3DOP

 

[3DOP]

Just now, 3DOP said:

Hey Mark! Thanks for your help in supporting my position. Thanks for your kind words and well wishes. We're doing very okay out here in middle America. 

Your friend in Jesus and Mary,

3DOP

 

I didn't mean to say that you were promoting Catholicism. I just meant that you seemed to be trying to be fair about a particular part of a bigger picture.

[InCognitus]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It's easy to escape the idea that if God KNOW something, He causes it.

You put cookies in front of a 3 year old and tell them not to eat them. You leave the room.

He eats some cookies.

Did you "cause" them to be eaten?

If you know when the next full moon will be, did you cause the full moon to happen?

Of course not.

Accurately predicting something does not cause it to happen

Hope you are ok after the recent tornadoes in your neck of the woods, praying for you

 

I think the problem is more complicated when there is free will of individuals involved in the foreknowledge.  The common argument that I've often heard (generally from atheists trying to disprove that there is a God), is that if God has absolute foreknowledge of what a person does, then free will can't exist because the person who chooses can't do anything other than what God knows they will do, and therefore God is the cause of all evil in the world because God created people knowing how they would behave.

But this reasoning is flawed when trying to eliminate free will from the equation (as you demonstrated) because it commits a logical fallacy known as the modal fallacy.  (For example, see:  Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Foreknowledge and Free Will, or the Wikipedia articles:   Argument from free will, Modal fallacy, and Modal logic.)  

But this is only true of the free will argument.  It becomes much more problematic when it is also assumed that God created all things and all beings, out of nothing, having complete foreknowledge of their actions and choices, since God would be responsible for exactly how they were made and thus their choices along with it.  This is the basis for the classic problems of evil.  And of course Joseph Smith's revealed theology solves those problems completely. 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, InCognitus said:

I think the problem is more complicated when there is free will of individuals involved in the foreknowledge.  The common argument that I've often heard (generally from atheists trying to disprove that there is a God), is that if God has absolute foreknowledge of what a person does, then free will can't exist because the person who chooses can't do anything other than what God knows they will do, and therefore God is the cause of all evil in the world because God created people knowing how they would behave.

But this reasoning is flawed when trying to eliminate free will from the equation (as you demonstrated) because it commits a logical fallacy known as the modal fallacy.  (For example, see:  Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Foreknowledge and Free Will, or the Wikipedia articles:   Argument from free will, Modal fallacy, and Modal logic.)  

But this is only true of the free will argument.  It becomes much more problematic when it is also assumed that God created all things and all beings, out of nothing, having complete foreknowledge of their actions and choices, since God would be responsible for exactly how they were made and thus their choices along with it.  This is the basis for the classic problems of evil.  And of course Joseph Smith's revealed theology solves those problems completely. 

Yep, agree!

In fact if you want to get into philosophy, look up "Compatiblism" and you will be able to mop up the floors with that kind of atheist argument! It just doesn't work!

The Pragmatist on the other hand would see it all as irrelevant because we still do in fact DO make moral choices choices minute to minute daily, and if you decide that you are determined, say, to kill people for fun or pleasure, you will end up in prison anyway so the puzzle becomes an irrelevant silly exercise to even imagine that we actually have no choice, because we know we do!

Even deciding to take moral determinism seriously enough time to debate it is itself a DECISION to play an insoluble and irrelevant game.  Why bother?

We know, even if "erroneously" that we have choices, and could not live with the conclusion that we don't!

It's like debating life after death- we won't find out until we die!

We either accept it on faith or do not.

There are no strict determinists who actually act as if the believe it!  

They still forget the milk at the grocery store and go back to correct the "mistake"!

So who cares?!

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by mfbukowski