meekerdb wrote:
On 2/12/2015 9:34 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
meekerdb wrote:
On 2/12/2015 6:24 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
John,
Calling 'empty space' 'nothing' in the philosophical sense is just a
confusion. I can only repeat what I said before:
'My position is that the idea that you can explain the origin of "a
universe from nothing" is absurd.' Either you have pre-existing laws
and substrate -- which is not 'nothing' -- or the universe just
"pops" spontaneously, and laws, etc, are just descriptions of
observed regularities in whatever has "popped". You don't have many
other options.
The other popular option (in both religion and physics) is that the
universe is eternal and no "popping" is needed. Some are eternal and
infinite and others are eternal and cyclic.
Brent
"Popping" was perhaps a bad choice of term. It conveys the idea of a
temporal progression from 'nothing' to the popped universe. I had in
mind, rather, block universe ideas in which the complete space-time
continuum is timelessly existent. There is no origin since time is a
concept only within the block. The block could be either of infinite
temporal duration (if such can be defined within the block universe),
or cyclical.
Then it seems it could also be finite and non-cyclical. Augustine
already thought that time only existed within the universe, yet he
supposed it was semi-infinite. I wonder if there has ever been a
religion that proposed a world that was future finite, but past eternal?
Yes, it could certainly be finite and non cyclical. Current physics
seems to point to a universe that is past finite and future eternal.
Religious models appear to presume a finite extension into both the past
and future -- there would be little motivation for a past eternal but
future finite model in religious thinking, I would suppose.
Bruce
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