Busy Beaver

[DT_]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

I can't tell you how many finite numbers are possible in the real world, but I don't think the real world has numbers at all. Numbers are concepts or ideas. They have no existence outside of our imaginations. They are abstract, not material.

I understand. Do you think the superuniverse has a diameter of infinite light-years?

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

As for the P = NP problem, as I understand it, it is widely believed among mathematicians that P ≠ NP. 

Hopefully we'll know the answer someday. 

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

You seem very concerned with God's qualifications as a mathematician. 

It's just a discussion. 

Edited August 26, 2022 by DT_

[ksfisher]

10 minutes ago, DT_ said:

It's just a discussion. 

It is.  It's just a bit different from the normal topics of discussion on this board.  Nothing wrong with that though.

[Stargazer]

11 minutes ago, DT_ said:

I understand. Do you think the superuniverse has a diameter of infinite light-years?

It can't. As I've said before, infinity can't be reached, so no diameter can be infinite.

[DT_]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

It can't. As I've said before, infinity can't be reached, so no diameter can be infinite.

Who or what caused the superuniverse? Is there only one superuniverse?

[Stargazer]

3 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Who or what caused the superuniverse? Is there only one superuniverse?

That was part of the conversation I was having with my wife in the car, as mentioned earlier. Actually, it was more of a monologue.

I have no better answer than this:

The following anecdote is told of William James. After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of the solar system, James was accosted by a little old lady.

"Your theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it, Mr. James, but it's wrong. I've got a better theory," said the little old lady.

"And what is that, madam?" inquired James politely.

"That we live on a crust of earth which is on the back of a giant turtle."

Not wishing to demolish this absurd little theory by bringing to bear the masses of scientific evidence he had at his command, James decided to gently dissuade his opponent by making her see some of the inadequacies of her position.

"If your theory is correct, madam," he asked, "what does this turtle stand on?"

"You're a very clever man, Mr. James, and that's a very good question," replied the little old lady, "but I have an answer to it. And it's this: The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him."

"But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted James patiently.

To this, the little old lady crowed triumphantly,

"It's no use, Mr. James—it's turtles all the way down."

This tale, probably apocryphal, is actually a characteristic of the "infinite regression" problem.

If I were to ask you where does the universe come from, what is your answer?

[DT_]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

If I were to ask you where does the universe come from, what is your answer?

Nobody knows. 

[Stargazer]

20 minutes ago, DT_ said:

Nobody knows. 

Ah, the safe answer!

But what is your speculation? You've been asking for my ideas all week, so let's have some turnabout. Put on your idea hat.

[DT_]

20 hours ago, Stargazer said:

It can't. As I've said before, infinity can't be reached, so no diameter can be infinite.

If you don't believe infinities are possible in the real world, then you would have to believe in some form of creation ex nihilo.

15 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Ah, the safe answer!

But what is your speculation? You've been asking for my ideas all week, so let's have some turnabout. Put on your idea hat.

There are cosmological models predicting infinities. There's no cosmological model predicting a true creation ex nihilo.  We humans did not evolve to understand cosmology, so we may never know the answer.

Edited August 27, 2022 by DT_

[Stargazer]

On 8/27/2022 at 7:22 PM, DT_ said:

If you don't believe infinities are possible in the real world, then you would have to believe in some form of creation ex nihilo.

This is a non-sequitur, meaning the conclusion does not follow from the premise. I'd be interested to see you try to prove it, though.

On 8/27/2022 at 7:22 PM, DT_ said:

There are cosmological models predicting infinities.

There are? Please tell me which ones do this?

You continue to fall into the trap that infinity intersects the real world. Mathematics is a particularly useful field of study, and it's concepts can help us understand the real world, but it is not the real world. The real world is real. Mathematics is a concept, and this includes infinity, but it is not a "thing" and is thus not "real".  You can count the number of subatomic particles in the universe, and you can count to BB(googolplex). This is because the number of subatomic particles in the universe is a discrete, precise number, and while BB(googolplex) is a concept and not a "thing," it represents a discrete, limited count (pack a lunch trying to count it, of course, because it will take all day). But infinity cannot be counted, because it can never be reached. And it isn't real.

On 8/27/2022 at 7:22 PM, DT_ said:

There's no cosmological model predicting a true creation ex nihilo. 

There isn't? Au contraire. Hawking provided one. Or at least he stated "I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science." He spends some time discussing this in the first two chapters of his last book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions. The two chapters being "Is There a God?" and "How Did It All Begin?" Hawking being who Hawking is, I think this might count for a cosmological model.

I'd recommend Hawking's book, by the way. It's quite fascinating.

On 8/27/2022 at 7:22 PM, DT_ said:

We humans did not evolve to understand cosmology, so we may never know the answer.

If we are the time-bound and limited creatures proposed in the atheistic model of existence, then of course we will never know the answer.

But if we are the timeless and potentially limitless creatures proposed in the LDS model of existence, then we will understand it, eventually.

I prefer the latter, by the way. And it doesn't hurt me one bit, regardless of which is the true state of affairs, Pascal being Pascal.

[DT_]

12 hours ago, Stargazer said:

This is a non-sequitur, meaning the conclusion does not follow from the premise. I'd be interested to see you try to prove it, though.

How would you avoid ex nihilo ?

12 hours ago, Stargazer said:

There are? Please tell me which ones do this?

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11225-019-09851-8

12 hours ago, Stargazer said:

There isn't? Au contraire. Hawking provided one. Or at least he stated "I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science."

Hawking meant out of the quantuum vacuum. Not a true ex nihilo.

12 hours ago, Stargazer said:

But if we are the timeless and potentially limitless creatures proposed in the LDS model of existence, then we will understand it, eventually.

You can't do anything without time. You need time or supertime to do something. 

 

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, DT_ said:

How would you avoid ex nihilo ?

Asking me this question is to assume, ab initio, that your conclusion follows your premise. Which is what you need to prove, since as far as I could see your conclusion does not follow from your premise. Which is why I called it a non-sequitur, and invited you to explain how the conclusion does follow from your premise.

14 hours ago, DT_ said:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11225-019-09851-8

You asserted: "There are cosmological models predicting infinities."
I asked: "There are? Please tell me which ones do this?"
Your response was the link above.

To which I say: very funny!  

Is the paper the link leads to what you intended to provide to prove your assertion? Because it doesn't support it at all. The paper pertains to mathematical set theory. The abstract alone tells us that it has nothing to do with cosmology. I skimmed the paper itself to be sure. So I'm still waiting to hear about a cosmological model that predicts infinities. I think you may be confused as to what a cosmological model is. 

14 hours ago, DT_ said:

Hawking meant out of the quantuum vacuum. Not a true ex nihilo.

Yes, that's correct. But Hawking's statement is the closest I could come to someone advocating ex nihilo. As I've said before, I take issue with Hawking on cosmological issues. 

As far as the quantum vacuum is concerned, I don't know whether it is real or not. The day someone manages to tap zero-point energy (perhaps out of a Casimir generator) is the day I'll call it real. Feynman is famous for saying "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." Well, I know I don't understand quantum mechanics, but I can identify a Feynman Diagram 10 times out of 10. For what that's worth.

The accepted standard cosmology is the Big Bang. What preceded the Big Bang is indefinable, because as Hawking correctly said, time did not exist before the Big Bang.  My proposal of superuniverse and supertime (these might be better termed metaverse and metatime, actually) is nothing more than a cope, when you get right down to it. I'd have to be a physicist of Hawking caliber to be able to plausibly propose them.

14 hours ago, DT_ said:

You can't do anything without time. You need time or supertime to do something. 

Yes, exactly. My statement about timeless and potentially unlimited creatures (which includes God) presupposes the existence of supertime. Whatever that is!

 

[DT_]

On 9/1/2022 at 2:00 PM, Stargazer said:

What preceded the Big Bang is indefinable, because as Hawking correctly said, time did not exist before the Big Bang. 

That's assuming no other universes existed before the Big Bang. 

On 9/1/2022 at 2:00 PM, Stargazer said:

Yes, exactly. My statement about timeless and potentially unlimited creatures (which includes God) presupposes the existence of supertime. Whatever that is!

Do things happen in supertime?  If so, what was the first thing that happened? 

Okay. I think I'm going to take my break now. 

You take care. 

[Calm]

The time that exists in our universe could be unique to us since it depends on frame of reference iirc. (Been decades since I read this kind of stuff).

Perhaps other universes have their version of time. If it was not somehow connected with our time, would that make a difference from having no time at all?

What is the official definition of Time these days?

I assume supertime would be the frame of reference which coordinates all the varied times for all the universes?

[DT_]

On 9/2/2022 at 5:00 PM, Calm said:

The time that exists in our universe could be unique to us since it depends on frame of reference iirc. (Been decades since I read this kind of stuff).

Perhaps other universes have their version of time. If it was not somehow connected with our time, would that make a difference from having no time at all?

What is the official definition of Time these days?

I assume supertime would be the frame of reference which coordinates all the varied times for all the universes?

Time is change, or the interval over which change occurs. Do you believe cosmic time had a true beginning? 

[Stargazer]

On 9/2/2022 at 11:13 PM, DT_ said:

That's assuming no other universes existed before the Big Bang. 

We have no frame of reference outside our own universe. So our time belongs to us, but no other universe's time does.

On 9/2/2022 at 11:13 PM, DT_ said:

Do things happen in supertime?  If so, what was the first thing that happened? 

In supertime, things are happening all the time, LOL! Assuming supertime actually exists. As for what was the first thing that happened, who can say? I know I can't. In the Doctrine and Covenants, a revelation was received by Joseph Smith in which God says

"God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit, yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost, that has not been revealed since the world was until now... A time to come in the which nothing shall be withheld ... All thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, shall be revealed and set forth upon all who have endured valiantly for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And also, if there be bounds set to the heavens or to the seas, or to the dry land, or to the sun, moon, or stars — All the times of their revolutions, all the appointed days, months, and years, and all the days of their days, months, and years, and all their glories, laws, and set times, shall be revealed in the days of the dispensation of the fulness of times..."

And all of this means that eventually much of what you, and I, would like to know will be revealed. We're obviously not there yet.

Having created this universe, God knows all that happens in it from the moment of the BB to the moment that he rolls it all up into a ball and restarts it, perhaps a few quadrillion years hence. Assuming that this is what he does. Anyway, that's time. What I speculate about supertime is that it is God's time, with a past and present that He knows, but a future that He doesn't know, because to Him it hasn't happened yet. But as I say, this is utter speculation. It is the same level of speculation that a creature in 2-d space has about 3-d space. It's fun to bandy ideas around about it, but otherwise there's no purpose. In other words, it's fun.

On 9/2/2022 at 11:13 PM, DT_ said:

Okay. I think I'm going to take my break now. 

I just took my own break! On the day you posted this I was getting ready to fly to Austria with the wife for a week's vacation traipsing around the Tyrolean Alps. My knee still hurts, and I am definitely totally out of shape. It was absolutely beautiful.

On 9/2/2022 at 11:13 PM, DT_ said:

You take care. 

You, too!

[Stargazer]

On 9/6/2022 at 9:36 PM, DT_ said:

Time is change, or the interval over which change occurs. Do you believe cosmic time had a true beginning? 

It may not.

Joseph Smith was told something in a revelation that suggests that whatever is outside this universe has always existed. What this means is way beyond my pay grade.

[Stargazer]

On 9/3/2022 at 12:00 AM, Calm said:

I assume supertime would be the frame of reference which coordinates all the varied times for all the universes?

This brings me to mind of Kolob, which is possibly the coordination point between our universe and the superverse.

And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

I wouldn't say that Kolob is even in our galaxy.