Hi Steve, On 17 Sep 2010 at 9:07, Steven Peterson wrote:
Hi Platt, Steve: > It would seem that either at some point something came from nothing or > that something was always around. Which do you think it is? Platt: >...So we find ourselves in the land of paradox. > The only way out of this rational cul-de-sac that I know of is for one to > decide which underlying assumption of the many available has the highest > quality. For me, it's that something was always around. In other words, I buy > the scientist's assumption that for every effect there is a cause That at the > beginning of the universe cause and effect suddenly becomes inoperative to > Hawkins and some other cosmologists seems to me to be a grand cop out. Steve: I don't think that Hawkings is saying that cause and effect get suspended at the beginning of the universe alone. The somethings coming from nothings happen all the time on the quantum level according to my understanding of his theoretical view. [P] Yes, that's also my understanding. Quantum theory is "Oops" in spades. Particles arise and disappear seemingly without cause. But, mysteriously that changes at upper levels. There everything happens by natural causes -- or so seems to be science's assumption. Why the change from no cause to cause, from "Oops" to "Because?" That's what I'd like to know. Maybe Pirsig's answer is best. Particles act they way that do at the quantum level because they prefer to act that way, just as life prefers to live and replicate and intellect prefers the subject/object division of experience, i.e., the world is moral order and values rule. Do you buy it? Steve: As far as "the land of paradox," I don't see any answer to questions about the beginning of time as obviously more rational and others as obviously worth laughing at as "oops" theories. Believers often argue that the universe must have a beginning because othgerwise we would have an infinite regress of causes. I suspect that our every day conceptions of time don't work with thinking about time as having a beginning since things like beginnings, befores, and afters presuppose that time already exists. [P] Agree. But I think "reason" depends on assumptions like things have beginnings. For example, reason says things like: "Time cannot be created because it takes time to create" and "The present never changes but everything changes in the present." In other words, paradoxes are a result of reason's limits. Which is why we have an "Incompleteness Theorem" and an "Uncertainty Principle." On the other hand if you mean by "rational" whatever science says is true, then we're of different minds. So I ask, what do you mean by "rational?" Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
