God did not create the Universe

[Primordial Annihilator]

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Regardless of what exists -- regardless of whether we know what it is -- if it exists, then it is what it is. Do you agree?

Anything that exists must exist as what it is, else it wouldn't be that and rather something else. Right?

So, "Anything that exists, exists as what it is" is an absolute metaphysical truth. Even if we don't know "what" exists, we can know that if anything exists then it exists as what it is.

All things that are perieved to exist are attached labels & descriptions, such as the Sun or a Carbon Atom.
I do not question that 'something' exists I question the validity of the label/description used due to our subjective limited ability to percieve and indeed measure...ultimately the correct label may never be found for many things that may empirically exist especially with regards to many metaphysical questions.

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

I question science's objective ability to ask all the questions..that cannot yet be answered.

Like what was the universe's function?

That there is no function, simply to exist?

Doesn't seem no feel....logical...to my similarly subjective mind.

 

[PolyHedral]

I question science's objective ability to ask all the questions..that cannot yet be answered.

Like what was the universe's function?

That there is no function, simply to exist?

Doesn't seem no feel....logical...to my similarly subjective mind.

Why must the universe have a function?

 

[Meow Mix]

All things that are perieved to exist are attached labels & descriptions, such as the Sun or a Carbon Atom.
I do not question that 'something' exists I question the validity of the label/description used due to our subjective limited ability to percieve and indeed measure...ultimately the correct label may never be found for many things that may empirically exist especially with regards to many metaphysical questions.

I don't dispute that our perception is subjective; I was just taking issue with the blanket statement that NO metaphysics are objective or absolute.

It is objective and absolutely true that if something exists, then it exists as what it is.

We might not know what exists, but we know THAT if something exists (whatever it is) then it is what it is. That's all. Just saying some metaphysics are absolute.

 

[Meow Mix]

I question science's objective ability to ask all the questions..that cannot yet be answered.

Like what was the universe's function?

That there is no function, simply to exist?

Doesn't seem no feel....logical...to my similarly subjective mind.

As Poly asked, why must there be an inherent function in the universe?

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

Why must the universe have a function?

It is far too complex and finely tuned.

I could have countered with the obvious question....

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

Please illuminate me with tales of infinite universes...I will respond.

 

[PolyHedral]

To answer that, allow me to share a quote from Prof. Feynmann. During whatever is the relevant war, (I think it was Vietnam), Feynmann is conscripted into the army, and goes for the psychological exam.

Examiner: What do you consider to be the value of life?
Feynman: 64.
Examiner: Why 64?
Feynman: Well, how do you put a value on life?
Examiner: I mean, why 64, and not, say, 83?
Feynman: Because if I had said 83, you would have still asked "Why 83?"

Of course the universe seems fine-tuned. If it were fine-tuned in an entirely different way, you'd still have asked.

 

[Autodidact]

It seems I recall that there is a separate mathmatical system where 1+1 does not equal 2. I may have read about it in a Kako book.

Binary? 1 + 1 = 10

 

[Autodidact]

I question science's objective ability to ask all the questions..that cannot yet be answered.

Like what was the universe's function?

That there is no function, simply to exist?

Doesn't seem no feel....logical...to my similarly subjective mind.

Whatever the universe's "function" is, if any, it's not to feel logical to your subjective mind.

Personally, I don't even know what it means to talk about the universe having a function.

 

[ellenjanuary]

The statement that "God did not create the Universe" is very offensive to those who know and love God. And it is much more offensive to the Holy LORD God who created all things.

Get over it. God does not take offense, speakers of god are offended. In the world, respect is earned by individuals. If an institution or a concept loses its respect through the disrespect of its speakers, that's just too bad. Be nice, and these things won't happen.

Usually.

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

God opens up far too many paradoxes, I prefer to subscribe to Stuart Kauffman's explanation that complexity is emergent from simpler ordered systems on the boundary of order and choas. So the universe could be so elegantly explained a symmetry breaking between pristine nothingness and everything. God on the other hand would have to be a complex entity to begin with, where did that complexity come from?, and why did that divine complexity have to exist infinitely back to into the past? Did angels exist with him to keep him company for an eternity back in the past and if that is so then who came first the angels or God?

 

[ellenjanuary]

God opens up far too many paradoxes, I prefer to subscribe to Stuart Kauffman's explanation that complexity is emergent from simpler ordered systems on the boundary of order and choas. So the universe could be so elegantly explained a symmetry breaking between pristine nothingness and everything. God on the other hand would have to be a complex entity to begin with, where did that complexity come from?, and why did that divine complexity have to exist infinitely back to into the past? Did angels exist with him to keep him company for an eternity back in the past and if that is so then who came first the angels or God?

Emergence... what a beautiful subject. If them pro-lifers would do some reading...
Yessir, the breaking of symmetry; I visualized this thing, don't know how real it is (or what real really means), where this is the third universe. "Created," or "spun-up (which I prefer)" by god - who may or may not have evolved from machine intelligence in the second universe. Who knows?

 

[Skeptisch]

You misunderstand me completely...

We have to take your word for it.

Participants of open forums often know very little about each other. That might be a good thing, or maybe not?

We can post with the handicap, or maybe advantage of believing that most things have, or will eventually have, a natural explanation or solution. We can believe that God is equal to the laws of nature and if these laws don’t tell us how the universe works, nothing will.

To get back to the OP, if God equals the laws of nature then, naturally, Hawing and Mlodinow are wrong concluding that God is not needed to create a universe. But that is probably not the God they had in mind in “The Grand Design”.

Without jumping on a semantic merry go around, would you or anyone else care telling us about your God?

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

To answer that, allow me to share a quote from Prof. Feynmann. During whatever is the relevant war, (I think it was Vietnam), Feynmann is conscripted into the army, and goes for the psychological exam.



Of course the universe seems fine-tuned. If it were fine-tuned in an entirely different way, you'd still have asked.

You would not be able to ask any questions if the fine tuning wasnt what it was.

Most values for most physical parameters/constants cannot be altered at all...like the nuclei energies of Carbon 14...life could not exist.

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

Whatever the universe's "function" is, if any, it's not to feel logical to your subjective mind.

Ok then why should the universe not have function then when clearly the universe is highly complex and non random?

Why would it be unlikely for a mind formed ultimately from the very same primeval forces and principles that formed all the stars planets and black holes etc...to discern a function.

Can the universe not know itself, through the intelligent life it spawns?

Or is that some nihilist article of faith you adhere to, in which everything is the sum of chance and happenstance?

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

God opens up far too many paradoxes, I prefer to subscribe to Stuart Kauffman's explanation that complexity is emergent from simpler ordered systems on the boundary of order and choas. So the universe could be so elegantly explained a symmetry breaking between pristine nothingness and everything. God on the other hand would have to be a complex entity to begin with, where did that complexity come from?, and why did that divine complexity have to exist infinitely back to into the past? Did angels exist with him to keep him company for an eternity back in the past and if that is so then who came first the angels or God?

A universal God should it exist may be a gestalt entity for all we know Bruno, and a product of chaos like everything else in the universe.

 

[PolyHedral]

Ok then why should the universe not have function then when clearly the universe is highly complex and non random?

Why would it be unlikely for a mind formed ultimately from the very same primeval forces and principles that formed all the stars planets and black holes etc...to discern a function.

Can the universe not know itself, through the intelligent life it spawns?

Or is that some nihilist article of faith you adhere to, in which everything is the sum of chance and happenstance?

A purpose of the universe implies something outside the universe, and we've got nothing to support that.

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

Without jumping on a semantic merry go around, would you or anyone else care telling us about your God?

I did explain why you misunderstand me so there is no need to accept what I say on faith btw.

Ok I will give it a go...

My God is not the creator God of renown, should there be a sentient pan galactic creator entity.
My 'God' says Lucifer is essentially me.
God is within each man and woman...the divine part of you which science fails to understand..the hypothetical reserve of theists mystics and spirtualists.

This is why you need no holy books to tell you how to be or worse people to interpret them for you, no priests to intercede for you...and no articles of faith to remove your reasoning.

Have faith in yourself.

 

[Primordial Annihilator]

A purpose of the universe implies something outside the universe, and we've got nothing to support that.

Please explain how you come to that conclusion...my friend.

I am interested not being critical